Dexo Design

Interviewed by Denise Dubie

Russell Wilson — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:39:29 +0000

See the interview here: http://www.networkperformancedaily.com/2010/07/ask_the_service_assurance_expe_1.html

Cisco’s new CTO comments on the importance of user interface design

Smart dust aims to monitor everything

Russell Wilson — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:22:50 +0000

http://bit.ly/cAoPKh

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Are user interface standards any good?

Russell Wilson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 14:59:15 +0000

Check out my post at uitrends: http://uitrends.com/2010/04/13/are-user-interface-standards-any-good/

Would love opinions…

How much information is too much?

Russell Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:32:28 +0000

I keep repeating the same pattern with the same results… I attempt to horde as much information as I can, like a kid in a candy store, until I can’t consume any of it!

For example, I setup iGoogle with all sorts of nifty gadgets and feeds… then I added more… and more… and then more… and now I don’t even use it! I did this with Google Reader as well, and don’t open it anymore. I also subscribed to various email distribution lists and groups on Linkedin, and now I never read any of them.

A little information is better than a lot because “a lot” is equivalent to none.

Takeaways from Presenting Data and Information (Edward Tufte)

Intuitive vs. Conventional

Russell Wilson — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:12:01 +0000

Thoughts?

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Is software design a luxury?

Russell Wilson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:39:24 +0000

In a team meeting recently, someone said “Isn’t it great that we have a software design team? Very few companies our size have that luxury!” The individual meant it as a positive compliment, but every time I hear someone say something like this, I’m reminded that while we are making great advances in software development, we still have a long way to go.

Definition of Luxury [Source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu]:

something that is an indulgence rather than a necessity
lavishness: the quality possessed by something that is excessively expensive

Software design is an indulgence and not a necessity? Software design is excessively expensive? If this is true then most certainly software architects, testers, and tech-docs are all luxuries as well. The only necessity is someone who can write code, and if you have more than one, a manager (maybe). The coder can just throw some standard widgets on a canvas, link them to database queries, test his code using some scenarios, and then write some simple guides using Google Docs. Done.

And as long as you just created some incredible innovation, you’ll be fine for a very short time until the competition catches on. Then you’re screwed.

Design happens, and it can happen well or it can happen poorly. It’s not whether you design the user interface of your product, it’s how you design it. We are past the days of users accepting horribly designed software products because they have been exposed to good design on the web and they expect more.

So are user interface designers necessary? Only if you want to create great products. Is user interface design expensive? Are programmers expensive? Is testing expensive? It’s called “cost of goods sold” (COGS).

User interface design is not a luxury… it’s a competitive advantage.

Design Process at Facebook

Russell Wilson — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 14:03:31 +0000

Caught this writeup from Luke Wroblewski on how Facebook designs their software. Key takeaways for me:

design team delivers front-end code
share early and often; design is involved start to finish
design team size = 25 (out of 1000 employees)
design is iterative – know from the start that your designs are “experiments” (my words) and may/will change

See the whole article here.

UI Design Guiding Principles

Russell Wilson — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:32:39 +0000

Just as my team and I began working on establishing a set of core guiding principles, I came across a post from John Schrag and his team at Autodesk describing their core design values. Based on their list and our own brainstorming, we have developed our own list of UI Design Guiding Principles:

Understand the problem before solving it (and avoid “design on the spot”)

Sketch before making it pretty (and discuss abstractions versus specifics — “selection” vs. “combo-box”)

Validate designs before investing in (production) code

Well designed key features & workflows over quantity

Ease of use over ease of coding

Validated designs over expert opinion

Don’t make things “consistently” wrong

Don’t let users shoot themselves in the foot

Context is important (Where am I? How did I get here? Where can I go next? What is my current state?)

Whitespace is good (… the more you add, the more you detract from what is there. … every element added to a page detracts from the rest. (Paul Boag)

This is a living list – I expect to tweak it over time, adding, deleting, editing…

Design Guiding Principles

Russell Wilson — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 22:47:53 +0000

John Schrag has just written a post titled Values in Software Design Practice.
To summarize, John and his team came up with two lists:

Appropriate order of actions:

Setting Goals before Taking Action
Understand Problems before Generating Solutions
Designing before Writing Design Documents
Validating Designs before Investing in Code
Steak before Sizzle

Values:

Validated Data over Expert Opinion
Quality of Data over Ease of Data Collection
Complete Workflows over Long Feature Lists
Achieving Results over Writing Reports
Collaborative Design over Design by Referendum or Design by Fiat
Ease of Use over Ease of Coding
Well-designed Critical and Common Workflows over Complete Coverage of Every Possible Workflow

Ironically, I was just about to begin an almost identical process with my team next week. We are having our first “UI Roundtable” with development and “Design Guiding Principles” is one of the topics. I plan to take John’s team’s list into consideration when developing ours.

The Ultimate Mac Setup for Web Designers (60 Apps)

Russell Wilson — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:23:12 +0000

http://tinyurl.com/dg7yga

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