Google Chrome Extensions: Blog This! (by Google)

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As this is the season of lists and of gift giving, I thought I would put together the top ten books I thought every designer of interactive products should have in their library. I’ve also seen some reading lists floating around that leave out what are, to me, essential texts, or include books that are too focused on a particular medium (web, mobile). (For reasons of impartiality, I excluded my own book, Designing for Interaction, although I certainly hope it sits alongside these on the bookshelf.)

10. Shaping Things. The one book on this list that is specifically about the future. Sterling shows us the future of the objects we’ll design.

9. Designing Interactions. A history (albeit an IDEO-centric one) of the discipline, although woefully poor about the web. Still, worth it for some of the interviews.

” More at the source : The Top Ten Essential Interaction Design Books:

The great iPhone death watch: “

What critics were saying about Steve Jobs’ smartphone in the months before it launched

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer. Click to play.

Three years ago, when it became clear that Apple (AAPL) was about to unveil some kind of mobile phone, critics began to weigh in on its chances of success. AAPLinvestors’ Terry Gregory, building on a list of skeptical quotes begun by MacDailyNews, has put together what may be the definitive collection.

A sample:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Palm CEO Ed Colligan, commenting on then-rumored Apple iPhone, 16 Nov 2006

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10 Usability Crimes You Really Shouldn’t Commit: “

Over time certain conventions and best practices have been developed to help improve the general usability of websites during their design and build. This roundup of ten usability crimes highlights some of the most common mistakes or overlooked areas in web design and provides an alternative solution to help enhance the usability of your website.

Crime 1: Form labels that aren’t associated to form input fields

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Five centuries of scientific breakthroughs unveiled: “

The nine-year-old Mozart was not, as suspected, a midget adult. This and many other fascinating revelations are uncovered in a collection of historic scientific documents unveiled by the Royal Society this week.

The society, formed in London in 1660, began publishing a journal titled Philosophical Transactions five years later – a journal which remains in print today. It has now republished 60 of the most notable articles in an interactive timeline which is probably the closest thing to an accessible history of scientific discovery as you’ll find.

The first article, from 1666, is an account of the first ever blood transfusion (from one dog to another), while the most recent is a 2005 look at ideas to combat global warming such as putting a trillion sunshades into space to filter the sun’s rays.

Among the most historically notable articles are Isaac Newton’s explanation of how “white” light is a mixture of other colors, Benjamin Franklin’s experiments with attracting lightning by flying a kite, the invention of the first electric battery, and the proof that fingerprints are unique.

Other lesser known articles cover a boy who was born blind but had his sight “restored” (which showed that depth perception is a learned skill), a first-hand study showing that despite his natural talents, Mozart was as easily distracted as any other child, and a look at continental drift (the summary for which notes that continents are moving apart faster than the human fingernail grows.)

Each article is printed in its entirety along with a brief summary, accompanying images and links to further information.

Related posts:

1. Scientific study says men smell of cheese, women smell of onion
2. Shamed embryo ‘expert’ accused of scientific and financial fraud
3. Science is Sexy Tidbit: Mrs. Darwin, Her Life in Brief

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Stop designing websites, start designing posters: “

Sometimes I think I am deeply conflicted. On one side I am always going on about how print is not like the web and web designers need to stick to conventions.

On the other hand I feel inspired to be more creative in my work and take some risks. I am bored with the same old approach to websites.

In one recent post I wrote:

Too many websites look the same as their competition. If you want users to remember your site it needs to stand out from the crowd.

How then can we be different and yet still ensure our websites are usable?

Looking to the poster for inspiration

One way to remain usable and yet be different, is to look for inspiration beyond the web. For example, look at print designs that have to grab people’s attention and communicate a lot of information quickly.

One example of this is printed posters.

Posters have to be:

• Visually attractive in order to grab attention.
• Easy to take in at a glance
• Provide more information to the more interested reader

In other words they need to be…

• Engaging
• Usable
• Scanable
• Have a clear information hierarchy

Sound familiar? Websites face exactly the same challenges.

Take a look at these posters below. Each is visually striking, provides key information first but has additional information for those interested. This is how we should approach web design.

Using poster design on the web

You maybe looking at these and wondering how this approach can be applied to the web. After all, they don’t have much in the way of content.

Setting aside the fact that most websites have far too much content and need to be simplified, it is not impossible even with more content.

In fact a lot of web designers have already taken inspiration from poster design. Here are just a few from my inspiration library.

Flourish Web Design

Groovy Web Design

Kitschen Sink

Samsung

Lana Landis

Finch

Carsonified Events

Noel Design

Personally I find this new generation of websites encouraging. It demonstrates an advance in the aesthetics of the web without undermining the principles of usability.

These designers should be commended for their desire to push the boundaries of traditional web design and for looking beyond the web for inspiration. They should be commended for rejecting the myth of the fold.

What about you?

So have I inspired you? Do you think that we can learn from the print design world or are the two worlds too different? Post your thoughts in the comments.

Similar Posts:

• Comment spammers – Stop wasting your time
• 3 ways to make your site stand out from the crowd
• Top design tip for designing in the browser
• 8 tools & techniques to improve your blogging
• atMedia: Designing the Next Generation of Web Apps

Did you like this post? Then Buy Paul’s book

The Website Owner’s Manual is a book for the thousands of marketers, IT managers, project leaders, and business owners who need to put a website in place and keep it running with a minimum of trouble.

It is also ideal for web designers who want to educate their clients about best practice. Why not add the cost of this book to your next project and avoid clients who just don’t ‘get it!’

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This work is licensed by Paul Boag under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

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Time management: How an MIT postdoc writes 3 books, a PhD defense, and 6+ peer-reviewed papers — and finishes by 5:30pm: “

I’m always on the lookout for “hidden gems,” or people who are doing remarkable work that the whole world hasn’t caught on to, yet.

Today, I asked my friend Cal Newport to illustrate how he completely dominates as a post-doc at MIT, author of multiple books, and popular blogger. How does he do it all?

Cal writes one of the best blogs on the Internet: Study Hacks. His guest post shows how you can take I Will Teach You To Be Rich principles — plus many others — and integrate them into a way to use your time effectively.

Below, you’ll learn:

• How to use fixed-schedule productivity — similar to the Think, Want, Do Technique — to consciously choose what you want to work on and ignore worthless busywork
• When to say no — and how to do it
• How a $60,000-a-speech professional manages his time
• Case study: How to use email for maximum time productivity

Read on at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IWillTeachYouToBeRich/~3/FUqod8g-RdY/

Are You a Cognitive Miser?: “

Jack is looking at Anne, but Anne is looking at George. Jack is married, but George is not. Is a married person looking at an unmarried person?

A) Yes.

B) No.

C) Cannot be determined.

This is from this month’s Scientific American — article unfortunately costs money. It’s about “dysrationalia,” which is what happens when people with nominally high IQ’s end up thinking irrationally. A phenomenon I’m sure we’ve all encountered, especially in certain corners of the blogosphere.

And the answer is the first option. But over 80 percent of people choose the third option. Here’s the solution: the puzzle doesn’t say whether Anne is married or not, but she either is or she isn’t. If Anne is married, she’s looking at George, so the answer is “yes”; if she’s unmarried, Jack is looking at her, so the answer is still “yes.” The underlying reason why smart people get the wrong answer is (according to the article) that they simply don’t take the time to go carefully through all of the possibilities, instead taking the easiest inference. The patience required to go through all the possibilities doesn’t correlate very well with intelligence.

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Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!: “Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.

Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data. In the past, we’ve taken numerous steps in this area, investing in educating our users with our Privacy Center, making it easier to move data in and out of Google with our Data Liberation Front, and allowing you to control the ads you see with interest-based advertising. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google’s philosophy, and today, we’re happy to announce that we’re doing even more.

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we’ve built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. Today, the Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we’re delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard. Watch this quick video to learn more and then try it out for yourself at www.google.com/dashboard.

Posted by Alma Whitten, Software Engineer, Yariv Adan, Product Manager, and Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience

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Fortune names Jobs “CEO of the Decade”: “

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Steve Jobs

Forbes Fortune bestowed a significant honor on Steve Jobs today, naming him their CEO of the Decade. Fortune outlines the incredible leaps in business, technology and industry Apple has made since Steve’s return. For anyone who might not remember, the 90′s were not kind to Apple and nearly everyone thought the company was finished.

Consider this incredible fact: Apple launched OS X and iTunes, opened the first two retail stores and introduced the first iPod … all in the same year (2001). Fortune also goes on to describe how Steve changed the film industry with Pixar, the music industry with the iTunes Store and the cell phone industry with the iPhone and the App Store.

He also kicked cancer’s ass.

This is precisely why I’m excited about the prospect of a new piece of hardware from Apple. I won’t call it a tablet because that’s not what it will be. Apple didn’t invent the digital music player, the mobile phone or mass distribution of media. But, they did demonstrate how to do those things the right way, which no one else could come up with.

If there’s a new product coming, comparing it to contemporary tablets or netbooks is a huge mistake, because it won’t behave like any of them.

Click below to watch Fortunes’ video on this announcement.

[Via MacDailyNews]

Continue reading Fortune names Jobs ‘CEO of the Decade’

TUAWFortune names Jobs ‘CEO of the Decade’ originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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