UX UI Design Resource

[yenknip]

Does anybody have any succinct or concise resource(s) for User Experience / Interface design? I am having a 'heated discussion' with my manager who seems to value mid-90s skeuomorphisms and old fashioned ideas. I feel I need to present him with some modern, peer reviewed, evidence based documents on good practices for UX and UI design.

(This would also be a great learning resource for myself, as I am definitely a system architect, rather than a UI specialist).

I would particularly value input from Mr. Dunaway whose ideas and demonstrations always blow me away.

[AnalogKid2DigitalMan]

Ed:

I remembered this article from Control Engineering, it refers to some standards along with other articles related to this one:

http://www.controleng.com/single-article/who-is-building-your-hmi/fc0056d95476eea85ebfa30bb5728dfd.h...

Is that along the lines of what you are looking for?

-AK2DM

[thoult]

I have access to some excellent ones within the company, which I'm currently working on adapting for the LabVIEW teams here. I plan to introduce it to the production bods here, our internal user group and then the local user group for feedback.

I'm not able to share the former, but I don't think it would be a problem (when I'm done... 😕 ) sharing the latter.

In terms of references, the one I've been recommended in the past (and never sought out, to be honest) was The High Performance HMI Handbook, but it's bound to be a little dated now.

Edit - just spotted the username, and realised who you are. The local user group I refer to is SoWLUG - I'd have met you on Wednesday if you'd not had to cancel 🙂

[Yamaeda]

Very general and broad terms, but then there's no single best design:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principles_of_user_interface_design

If you e.g. look at windows 8.1's Metro, it specifically emphasise the 3 first principles: Structure, simplicity, visibility.

I've taken inspiration from this in that i always think "What can i remove from the UI", instead of the other way around. If something is "good to have" it should be a sub-panel, menu option or similar. 

/Y

[Yamaeda]

double post

[yenknip]

Thanks all, I do appreciate that the topic is rather hard to define and quantify.

I am basically after something which backs up my years of experience, and shows him that the general consensus has moved on in the last 2 decades. I have always followed the design advice that Apple and Microsoft have occasionally published, and what seems sensible in various blogs.

AK2DM: Thanks for the link, there are a couple of points in the document which backup what I am trying to get across

Tim: Specific examples would be useful to me for sparking ideas, but I'm not on a mission to steal UI designs from people! Yeah, I'm sad I had to cancel, I've come down with the dreaded lurgy. I think the next big meetup will be at NI Days in November.

Yamaeda: I have also come to the conclusion of 'less is more'

[Yamaeda]

---

@yenknip wrote:

I am basically after something which backs up my years of experience, and shows him that the general consensus has moved on in the last 2 decades. I have always followed the design advice that Apple and Microsoft have occasionally published, and what seems sensible in various blogs.

---

I did a picture search on "Good UI design" and got many metro-ish examples, especially from the phone/app-side.

What's the ideas you're trying to avoid?

/Y

[thoult]

Ed - they're mostly guidelines, rather than specific designs. The translation that I'm undertaking will involve creating some LV related examples so it's a bit more familiar, but there's no intent to dictate design yet.

From memory, as I haven't looked at it since yesterday, the style contains advice on colour palettes, design for touch applications, process linearisation...and much more besides.

Having said all that, I am working on a template HMI for touch panels in production processes, but there's a chunk of work I need to do before I make it available to anyone else.

I'm not sure whether I'll make it to NI Days, as I have a newborn to handle here at home. If I do, I'll try and bring along some tasters from the UX UI team.

[patrickpollock]

Here are a couple documents that I found to be really helpful with interface design. These are mainly focused on HMI design but I think are still useful as general design guidelines.

Main basic points:

1. Simplistic representations are better than skeuomorphs, animations, P&ID type layouts
2. Analog indicators that show trends + context are more helpful than simple digital indicators
3. Showing meaningful data is better than showing raw data (make indicators shown meaning in light of a goal)
4. Use bright colors and blinking/spinning things to actually indicate something
5. Group things together that belong together
6. No gratuitous information

If you decide to go with a Metro type layout, here is a useful link:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh872191

This site might give you some inspiration on how to display data in a simple, meaningful way:

http://themeforest.net/item/start-metro-ui-responsive-admin-template/full_screen_preview/3408505

I hope this is helpful.

-Patrick

[SimonH]

These may be a little more than you need but I've found them to great references for my own learning

• Google's new design language and guidelines: http://www.google.com/design/
  
• Microsoft's design guidelines: https://dev.windows.com/en-us/design
  
• Apple's Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/In...