a cup of java

This is from usabilitypost.com. It’s really a nice read.

Read it here.
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/04/15/8-characteristics-of-successful-user-interfaces/

There is a lot of information out there about various interface design techniques and patterns you can use when crafting your user interfaces and websites, solutions to common problems and general usability recommendations. Following guidelines from experts will likely lead you towards creating a good user interface — but what exactly is a good interface? What are the characteristics of an effective user interface?

Here are 8 things I consider a good user interface needs to be:

1. Clear
2. Concise
3. Familiar
4. Responsive
5. Consistent
6. Attractive
7. Efficient
8. Forgiving

“15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website” – is a very good article. I recommend it to all web designers/developers.

Your website is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the website live. Or is it? When launching a website, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your website to the world.

This article reviews some important and necessary checks that web-sites should be checked against before the official launch — little details are often forgotten or ignored, but – if done in time – may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release.

Read it here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/04/07/15-essential-checks-before-launching-your-website/

I have always been a big fan of web design & web usability. I found a nice article in Smashing Magazine by Dmitry Fadeyev. Its all about some common usability mistake we do.

By now, all good designers and developers realize the importance of usability for their work. Usable websites offer great user experiences, and great user experiences lead to happy customers. Delight and satisfy your visitors, rather than frustrate and annoy them, with smart design decisions. Here are 9 usability problems that websites commonly face, and some recommended solutions for each of them.

Read the article (9 Common Usability Mistakes)

Related links on usability
10 Usability Nightmaters That You Should Avoid
30 Usability Issues To Be Aware Of
12 Useful Techniques For Good Interface Design

About the author

Dmitry Fadeyev is the founder of the Usability Post blog, where you can read his thoughts on good design and usability.

Follow Dmitry on Twitter @usabilitypost.

Have a nice read.

I found this small but very good article in phpied.com by Stoyan Stefanov – Twitter page. The article tells about handling broken images in a web page, especially when we dont have control over what we load in our page.

I know, you don’t have broken images on your site, it’s unprofessional and ugly. But sometimes you may be loading images that you don’t control and you never know what’s going on on the other server you’re expecting to serve, but it may not feel up to the task.

One nice and simple strategy to deal with this uncertainty is to hide the images that fail to load. Browsers sent an “error” event when the worst happens and an image fails for whatever reason. Subscribe to this event using your favorite event-listener-attaching approach or library and hide the image.

The solution is very simple.

<img src="broken.png"
  onerror="this.style.display='none'"
/>

Read the article here

I’ve been a huge fan of “simple web design” & usability. And I’m a regular reader of Smashing Magazine & Ajaxian. Today I got a chance to walk thru a couple of very nice articles – “12 Useful Techniques For Good User Interface Design” & “10 Useful Web Application Interface Techniques” in Smashing Magazine.

More and more applications these days are migrating to the Web. Without platform constraints or installation requirements, the software-as-a-service model looks very attractive. Web application interface design is, at its core, Web design; however, its focus is mainly on function. To compete with desktop applications, Web apps must offer simple, intuitive and responsive user interfaces that let their users get things done with less effort and time.

In the past we didn’t cover web applications the way we should and now it’s time to take a closer look at some useful techniques and design solutions that make web-applications more user-friendly and more beautiful. This article presents the first part of our extensive research on design patterns and useful design solutions in modern web applications. Below you’ll find a collection of 10 useful interface design techniques and best practices used in many successful web-applications.

Have a nice read.