Learning Principles of Design

Here I will do a collaborative entry with a good friend of mine, Joseph Estacion.  We learnt 6 Principles of User Interface Design and 17 applicable Techniques.  For this entry I will talk about 3 principles.  The other 3 will be covered by Joseph at his blog "Apples OS X User Interface".

These are more or less some rules and guidelines we developers and I should heed and adhere to in my future endeavours with designing with new media tools.  Please allow me to share them with you.


The Feedback Principle:
The fourth principle is Feedback.  A user must be notified with a confirmation if there’s a state change that the user requests.   Or if the user deletes items or files, the user interface must concisely and explicitly return a feedback to ensure that the user is fully aware of certain results and that at this point, the action cannot be undone.

I see that iTunes has been able to implement this principle diligently as music or other various contents are important to the user.  Some might have been ripped, bought, or created by the user.  Should there be a command issued by the user, some sort of feedback must be given in response to confirm.  The technique that is applied is number 7: Wording messages and labels effectively.

If a user clicks the "delete" button, a confirmation must always be supplied to ensure that the user is fully aware that they are about make changes that could be potentially disastrous by removing contents that are not only unrecoverable, instead, that it will be lost forever.

In addition, technique number 11 is applicable as well.  A contrast rule must be implemented to ensure the user is able to distinguish each word and character.  The text must stand out from the background.  If the two are analogous, the user will have difficulty reading the feedback provided and finally might make an unsound decision.

The designer should expect the user to make mistakes, technique 13.  The ability to recover deleted items should be provided.

The Tolerance Principle:

The user must be able to undo certain actions when they change their minds.  Therefore the UI must be flexible and tolerant in design.  Having the flexibility in tolerating and reducing the user's possible mistakes by assisting them to autosave their work.  If the ignorance of the user causes havoc, some sort of remedy might be gracefully accepted.  In order for the interface to assist the user in this particular incident, there is an application called "ForeverSave" which lets the user determine the specific application (s) to autosave by user defined set intervals to autosave work and also in variations or state changes, like switching applications.

The technique number 7, wording the messages and labels effectively is imperative as the user must be able to distinguish the specific instructions and to apply the values to activate autosave is required.

In addition, the interface must not be busy.  A clean and straightforward interface where the choices are clearly stated with no distractions.

Obviously, expecting user mistakes must be considered.  If for some reason the user decides to remove certain applications from autosaving, the choice my be provided for the user to remove the application without any issues.

The Reuse Principle:

Certain components and possibly behaviours should have a purpose and be consistent in design and provide easy access and avoid users to relearn the methods.  The MultiTouch interface, for one, is an applicable with consistency technique.  The ability to use the swipe left gesture to go to the next page and vice versa to go back to the previous page.  This consistency is seen in the iPhone, iPads, iPod touches, the trackpad on the mobile computers, and the MagicTrackpad.

Apparently,  technique 6, navigation within screen is enabled as we understand it.  We are then able to scroll up or down from just touch and gesturing down to get to the bottom and vice versa.  Also, to go from one side of the screen to the other side, if we are zoomed into the page we are viewing.

As a result, to zoom in, the Intuitable touch interface provides the user the ability to work things out by basic instinct.  For example,  the "pinch-out" and "pinch-in" gestures could be applied to zoom in and zoom out respectively.  In addition, to turn an image on the computer, a simple left or right turn with the two fingers apart to turn the image into landscape or portrait mode.

So, to continue with the other 3 principles, I encourage you to visit Joseph Estacion's blog entry Apple's OS X User Interface.

My Very Own - iPhone 4 review...

I've made an endeavour attempt and daring review of a device that I've been using for a while.  This is my very first review that is documented and shared.  Wow, that is a few first.

The device that was reviewed is the iPhone 4.  I chose to review this device for a very specific reason: it is the only device that sort of know a lot about.  The number one challenge, was to find at least one flaw to report on.  Having used the iPhone 4 for almost a year, I simply found it hard to find at the very least a flaw.  It might have been that I did realize the flaw and adapted to it and/or found a resolution and might have believed that it isn't a flaw anymore.  At the same time, I'm really passionate about the device.  There's not really anything I don't like about the iPhone.  However, when reviewing, I must also point out  the negative or 'cons' of the product.  This was my major challenge.  So I end up reviewing on something that was slightly annoying to me, the virtual keyboard along with it's autocomplete.  Actually, it works like a charm half of the time.  The other half...well, let's just say, I did wish that it would behave as I want it to: "be quiet!"

The title page of the review.

I started the review with an abbreviated company information, history, and products that Apple Inc. currently is producing and marketing.  In this page, I must learn to determine how to layout the images on a page so it is pleasing to and leading the eyes within the page.  Great way for me to apply some of the received information from my Multi Media Design professor.  I do hope that my application of these information are appropriate proportionately correct.

An attempt to page layout.

As I progressed with the hardware configurations and system specifications, I realized that there are a multitude of information available just on the iPhone 4's Apple webpage.  When I reached the third page of these configurations and specifications, I figured that I can't just continue to cover of the rest of the physical attributes of the hardware.  I continued with the firmware or software overview.  While I was reporting on those, another challenge was that there is also countless information available that was not going to be covered.  Choosing what to leave out is also part of this challenge and that wasn't a fun part.  In addition, learning where to draw a line, too.

Learning to leave out more than I need and using smaller images.

Finally, the sources are most probably not referenced correctly.  Unfortunately, when I sent the review to be printed, I realized that there's an upper cap limit of 10 mb for the file to be uploaded for printing at Seneca's computer commons.  My .pdf file was the size of just a bit more than 30 mb.  I wasted some time uploading the file to print while I the file was constantly rejected without any messages.  Then I looked at the FAQ section and that's when I learned about the top cap.  However, when I realized that when I was looking at the review, I realized that none of images were referenced individually.  Bad...bad mistake.  Learnt to have a final check before actually printing the expensive document.

Reference page that is missing details.

Having said all these, this review is a fun report.  I thought it would be an easy review.  The contents were readily available.  The constant tediously attempting the aligning of the images and layout of how it flows along with text is very time consuming.  On and off, I probably have spent about 5 to 6 hours on this project.  Just wish that I'd be able to convert that into cash.  Probably not now.   A learning experience it is.