Writing Microcopy
An Interface and Product Design blog by Joshua Porter
Daring Fireball: Pound the Quality
Is the App Store popular because the iPhone is great? Or is the iPhone great because the App Store is popular?
Recreating the THX Deep Note - EarSlap
Procedural music, art, computation and some other things.
Designing to Sell
Are you the owner of this domain? Visit Porkbun to start building your website. We may already have a design waiting for you.
Flat Design: Its Origins, Its Problems, and Why Flat 2.0 Is Better for Users
Flat design is a web-design style that became popular around 2012. It is still widely used today, and its misuse can cause serious usability problems.
Mac-Assed Mac Apps
Link to: https://inessential.com/2020/03/19/proxyman
Participation Inequality: The 90-9-1 Rule for Social Features
In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
Mirrorboard: A one-handed keyboard layout for the lazy
Do you have a wearable computer? Are you interested in alternate keyboard layouts but too lazy to learn Dvorak? Do you masturbate at your desk? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you ma…
Jef Raskin on "Intuitive Interfaces"
One of the most common terms of praise for an interface is to say that it is "intuitive" (the word should have been "intuitable" but we will bow to convention). Yet the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature rarely mentions the word, and for good reason. This note attempts to clarify the meaning of "intuitive"…
Designing for People Who Have Better Things To Do With Their Lives
When you design user interfaces, it’s a good idea to keep two principles in mind: Users don’t have the manual, and if they did, they wouldn’t read it. In fact, users can’t r…
MindBEMding – getting your head ’round BEM syntax
A primer on the oft-confusing BEM notation for CSS
BSI-001: The Perfect Wall
The perfect wall is an environmental separator—it has to keep the outside out and the inside in. In order to do this the wall assembly has to control rain, air, vapor and heat. In the old days we had one material to do this: rocks. We would pile a bunch or rocks up and have the rocks do it all. But over time rocks…
AskTog: A Quiz Designed to Give You Fitts
Fitts' Law, A fundamental principle of interaction design, from AskTog, the Webzine for Computer Professionals, their Family, and Friends
10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design
Jakob Nielsen's 10 principles for interaction design. They are called "heuristics" because they are broad rules of thumb and not specific usability guidelines.
Response Time Limits: Article by Jakob Nielsen
How users react to delays in a user interface, whether website or application. The 3 main response time limits are determined by human perceptual abilities.
A Tribute to the Windows 3.1 “Hot Dog Stand” Color Scheme
Yesterday’s post about code syntax color schemes got me thinking about what is perhaps the ultimate color scheme, Windows 3.1’s “Hot Dog Stand”: The truly funny thing about this color scheme is that all the other Windows 3.1 color schemes are surprisingly rational, totally reasonable color
Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users
Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.
Building a professional design tool on the web
Our vision for the future of design tools is one where both the tool and the content are easily available to anyone, anywhere.
Mac external displays for designers and developers
If you’re considering an external display for your Mac, there’s a few important decisions to make. Apple doesn’t sell external displays any more, so you can’t just default to their wisdom. That’s an issue, because not all displays are well suited for Macs.
Line length | Butterick’s Practical Typography
Butterick’s Practical Typography
Explorable Explanations
An active reader asks questions, considers alternatives, questions assumptions, and even questions the trustworthiness of the author. An active reader tries to generalize specific examples, and devise specific examples for generalities. An active reader doesn't passively sponge up information, but uses the author's…
Readability: The Optimal Line Length
The length of text lines substantially impacts their readability — yet this is often overlooked in e-commerce. See our latest test findings on line length readability.
Edward Tufte Notebooks & Sketches
A forum moderated by author and artist Edward Tufte, including discussion and questions dealing with information design.