User Interface Category

Posts with topics related to human-factors and human-computer interfaces and engineering.

Jan 19 | In search of serendipity and soulful data

Every Wednesday I get the privilege to attend HCI lunches here at Stanford where a mishmash of scholars, professors, and students meet over lunch to watch someone’s presentation on research (and proceed to tear it apart).

Feb 26 | Google rolls out new UI

… but only for a few? Click on image for a screenshot.

Oct 18 | The minimalist aesthetic

How far we have come in comprehending the fundamentals of user-oriented design! Here’s an example where functionality has overridden the long-held tenets of design and visual design: the log in screen for an OS.

Sep 3 | The IKEA Furor

Just as Tropicana and Pepsi bungled over rebranding, IKEA now has been added to the list, and this time over something slightly less obvious.

Jun 4 | Radio button UI

An online banking security prompt asks me whether or not the computer I’m using is a public computer or not:

Problem: Even though there is a lot of text associated with each radio button, I have to navigate to the button itself each time to select one or the other option (frustratingly, the site assumes that whenever I connect I want it to think I’m on a private computer, which is never always the case).
Resolution: use labels and ids, as follows:

Click this text to select this button

Click this text to select this button instead

Compare this to the rather less convenient

You have to click on the radio button to select this one

Likewise for this radio button

Identified problems: using a table structure with cells breaks the label’s power to associate the button with the text.