November 29, 2007
Information Design Watch
From Dynamic Diagrams
Design for Understanding
All of these articles first appeared on our Information Design Watch blog. Please visit the blog to view additional entries not included in the newsletter. You also can register and comment on most posts.
In This Issue:
INTERFACE DESIGN
- Two hot concepts: iPhone and periodic table. What could possibly go wrong?
DESIGN
- (T)AXI
- See for Yourself
DEVELOPMENT & IMPLEMENTATION
- The Slow Death of the Technical Specification
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
- Dynamic Diagrams Launches Two Web Sites
- Dynamic Diagrams' Project Wins Award
- Contractors Needed for Research, IA, Interaction Design
INTERFACE DESIGN
Two hot concepts: iPhone and periodic table. What could possibly go wrong?
Posted by Mac McBurney
Two dazzling and totally irrelevant visual metaphors in one thoroughly annoying interface.
I loved the novelty of being a kiosk/iPhone and the creative, behind-the-glass point of view. Then I tried to get something done. 3M is a kind of hometown hero for me. I know some good people there and I want to like the company, so part of me wants this crime against usability to be intentional, logical somehow. QWERTY keyboards were designed to discourage excessive speed. Could 3M have any conceivable reason to discourage excessive understanding? Anyone... Hello? Say it ain't so, Joe!
DESIGN
(T)AXI
Posted by Henry Woodbury
For those interested in logo design, the New York Times City Room blog is offering an extended design revew of the city's new taxi logo.
The first post describes the design process and features the comments of designers Michael Bierut and Michael Rock; additional posts provide additional designer and reader responses. From the second installment, here's the take of designer Sam Potts:
The central T is obviously a reference to the subway — too obviously if you ask me — but that is strategically a mistake, as the T.L.C. is separate from the M.T.A. Why equate them visually?
To have the 'NYC' touch is, to me, poor craftsmanship, especially with such a blocky typeface. Additionally, as this goes whizzing by, clumped-together letters just get clumpier.
Having said that, my first reaction to this was, 'There's a logo for the taxis?' In fact, the logo is a secondary element in the branding of the taxis — I imagine very few notice the logo but everyone knows what the yellow signifies. I'd even say that the Crown Vic is a more powerful brand identifier (in the parlance) than whatever logo they had or adopted.
Both Potts and fellow designer Oscar Bjarnason note the ill-conceived reference to the city subway logo, a legendary brand we have mentioned before.
See for Yourself
Posted by Henry Woodbury
The Laboratory of Dale Purves MD at Duke University has a page of optical illusions and perceptual challenges. Interactive controls allow you to test the "illusion" part of each example while links to the empirical explanations describe why your brain interprets what it sees the way it does.
The website for San Francisco's Exploratorium Museum of Science has a small gallery of similiar illusions, with shorter explanations.
INTERFACE DESIGN
The Slow Death of the Technical Specification
Posted by Lisa Agustin
The days of the web developer's technical spec are long gone, writes columnist Richard Banfield: "In a world of intensely visual design, we have to ask why we still need to write massive documents to describe web products that real people will use." According to Banfield, there was a time when it made sense to document everything before starting any software development, and that this way of doing things was largely a result of limited technology and lower design costs. These days, developing a web site or application demands a more agile approach--one in which visual tools play a key role:
"Once the priority of a project is established, the team should immediately move toward visualizing that idea. This can take many forms, but we have found that whiteboards and large pieces of paper work wonders to get everyone on the same page. Nothing slows down the creative process like a 60-page document, complete with spreadsheets and appendices."
This has been our experience as well. While some engagements do require some type of written narrative--especially in cases where there needs to be a more detailed explanation of the application for a broader group outside of the development team--we've seen immense value in translating requirements into a visual form during all phases of a project. I would take Banfield's comments a step further by suggesting that visuals are not just helpful tools, but can often replace specification documents as deliverables. Diagrams (for expressing high-level user experience), process flows (for explaining complex transactions), and heavily annotated wireframes (for describing functionality at the page-level) are "closer to reality" than a Word document that describes them. This makes the idea behind an application easier to understand and discuss, leading a group to consensus about direction much more quickly.
DYNAMIC DIAGRAMS NEWS
Dynamic Diagrams Launches Two Web Sites
Posted by Lisa Agustin
Two web sites created by Dynamic Diagrams were launched last month at the annual Global Forum for Health Research in Beijing.
The IP Handbook of Best Practices is an intellectual property management resource for policy makers, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientific researchers. Core to the web site is the Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: A Handbook of Best Practices, a printed text comprised of 153 chapters covering a variety of topics ranging from subject overviews (e.g., technology evaluation and valuation) to more practical concerns (e.g., contracts and agreements). The IP Handbook site leverages the capabilities of the web by enabling users to explore content based on their audience role with links to user-specific site and topic guides, and a blog for keeping up to date on the latest IP management news and views. The handbook also takes advantage of existing IP-related resources, with links to networking opportunities, training programs, publications, and IP-related databases. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the site was developed with MIHR (the Centre for Management of Intellectual Property in Health Research and Development) and PIPRA (The Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture).
The Tropical Diseases Research to Foster Innovation and Knowledge Application web site, or TropIKA, is a global knowledge management electronic portal for sharing essential information and facilitating identification of priority needs and major research gaps in the field of infectious diseases of poverty. Areas of knowledge include: public health research needs and scientific opportunities; research-based evidence in support of control and policy; high profile research activities and control projects; international research funding and support opportunities; and potential innovations for interventions and control of infectious diseases of poverty. Intended for policy makers and research scientists, the site offers research, news, commissioned thematic reviews, virtual journals, policy and strategy briefs, funding opportunities, networks (communities of practice, forums) and resources (training packages, factual databases, multimedia). To help users access specialized content quickly, the site offers a mechanism for filtering content across multiple diseases, content types, and geographic regions. This site was developed under the leadership of the World Health Organization's Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR).
We are grateful to the project team members that made these endeavors a success, especially those at Frederick Toth & Associates, Inc., our development partner for both projects.
Contractors Needed for Research, IA, Interaction Design
Posted by Henry Woodbury
Dynamic Diagrams is seeking to develop new relationships with user experience contractors to supplement our full-time staff.
Please refer to the post above or to the Careers page on our web site for details.
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