A curated design/dev feed by Mark Collins

Starters guide to iOS design

2013-05-21T07:53+00:00

Well presented and worth a bookmark.

EDIT: also App design workflow

Touch interaction design

2013-05-21T07:07+00:00

Microsoft have put together a design guide for their Windows 8 touch devices. Much of this applies to any touch device.

Size vs. efficiency: Target size influences error rate

Some interesting insights.

Try Objective-C

2013-05-21T06:56+00:00

Another engaging learning utility from the guys at Code School. Also check out their portfolio site Envy Labs. I am Envy.

Author marks

2013-05-20T17:00+00:00

I’ve been using text highlighing on this blog for about a year now to outline what I feel is most important (think highlighting passages in a text book). Matt Gemmell has introduced it to his blog with a turn on/off switch. Matt has also kindly supplied some JS to help you implement on your blog.

Google+ and the whiff of desperation

2013-05-16T08:17+00:00

So the new Google+ looks nice. Clearly a lot of effort and research has gone into this version. Congratulations to the countless designers, developers and researchers behind this release. However, I still won’t be using it.

My favorite apps/services are those built by small indie teams. These apps are born by passion to solve a problem. Google+ on the other hand reeks of desperation to get users to commit every aspect of their private lives to their database. It’s all about the database. Google can add all the bells and whistles they like – I’m not interested.

Maybe I’m being unfair. Perhaps Google justs wants me to make meaningful online connections…

Join now! No.

2013-05-16T07:29+00:00

I’ve just visited Inc to look at a review of analytic apps.

The first fuck up

A shortish article split over 3 pages. This bullshit pagination is only there to increase page views for ad revenue. It spoils the UX for the sake of bumping clicks.

The second fuck up

I clicked the pagination to move to the 2nd page. Page two goes dim and a lightbox appears with a JOIN NOW message. I click to close this annoying popup. I then click to move onto the 3rd page and the lightbox appears again.

Conclusion

So what has happened here. I quit Inc with nothing but hate for their approach. If I ever see a Inc link I won’t be clicking it.

We all want our users to commit to us in one way or another but think about how you go about this. Aggressiveness won’t be tolerated.

Pop app: Prototyping

2013-05-15T11:08+00:00

Sketch your mobile app on paper, take a photos of your sketches and then chain together to make a fast prototype. Brilliantly simple.

Buycott

2013-05-15T10:33+00:00

I love the idea behind this app.

Have you ever wondered whether the money you spend ends up funding causes you oppose?

It’s not the greatest designed app I’ve ever used and it hangs for too long but that can be forgiven (I think their servers are taking a hammering right now).

Drop-down selector

2013-05-13T16:00+00:00

I’m doing research into country selectors in forms. My problem is that these nearly always tend to be ridiculously long drop-down lists that users have to scroll through to find their country.

Most popular countries at the top?

I always felt this method alienates those countries that haven’t made it to the top 5. Do I really want to do that?! Nope.

United Kingdom, Great Britain, Britain, England.

Variations of country names are a pain. I’ve scrolled all the way down to ‘U’ to find United Kingdom is missing. Back up to ‘G’ I go. There it is. Gotcha.

Type to jump

Does your average user know that they can press the first letter of their country to jump to that section of the alphabet. Probably not. Why would they. It does after all appear to be an interactive mouse element.

Input box

Okay so now we’re getting somewhere. Users know how to type and thanks to Google’s predictive search box mechanism they have an understanding of typing just a few letters to narrow a selection. Commonsense prevails here (dangerous territory I know).

Typos

Even those of us that can spell often make mistakes due to speed or clumsy fingers. Ideally the country input field will have partial matching of sorts.

Budget pending we can tackle the small problems and make a big difference to the overall User Experience.

Here’s some further reading:

» Ajax autocomplete for jQuery

» Drop-down lists are bad

» Unified drop-down menus

Reorganising

2013-05-13T07:03+00:00

I’ve updated the design here at Pixxel and added a much needed search option.

A curated feed of links, articles and opinions.

I blog here primarily to have my own personal archive of useful links and resources. You guys appear to be enjoying what I do here so that makes me very happy.

I also really enjoy helping you guys promote your excellence and so in addition to this blog I now send out a weekly newsletter to roundup the awesome I’ve discovered.

To help pay for Mailchimp I’ve added a single advert. I thought really hard about this. I’m not looking to profit – I’m looking to get some help towards costs. Please rest assured that I will continue to post only the very best links etc. and will never post just for the sake of it to get page views. Fuck that.