Personalization of User Interface By vijay on January 21, 2011 — 1 min read … if we are competent user interface designers and can make our interfaces nearly optimal, personalizations can only make the interface worse. Therefore, we must be sparing and deliberate in offering user customizations. If a user can, by a few judicious choices, really improve the interface, we probably have done a poor job. On the... More
→ You Can't Innovate Like Apple By vijay on September 1, 2010 — 1 min read Old, but still worth linking again. First, forget about it unless you are willing to invest significantly and heavily to establish a culture of innovation like Apple’s. Because it’s not just about copying Apple’s approach and procedures. The vast majority of executives who say, “I want to be just like Apple,” have no idea what... More
Apple’s Attention to Detail By vijay on August 25, 2010 — 1 min read The average respiratory rate for adults is 12-20 breathes per minute, which is the rate that the sleep-indicator light fades in and out on most Apple laptops. Older models such as the Macintosh PowerBook, however, use a blinking LED indicator, with discrete pulses in one-second intervals. The other day, I noticed that my friend’s Dell... More
Designing for Mobile First Helps with Big Issues By vijay on June 4, 2010 — 1 min read For years, Web designers and developers have struggled to make Web sites look and act the same in every browser. But every browser is different. They each have their own capabilities and limitations. So making every experience the same across all browsers means not taking advantage of some opportunities capabilities and hacking around existing limitations.... More
→ Four Ways to Mix Fonts By vijay on March 19, 2010 — 1 min read Is there a way to know what fonts will work together? Building a palette is an intuitive process, but expanding a typographic duet to three, four, or even five voices can be daunting. Here are four tips for navigating the typographic ocean, all built around H&FJ's Highly Scientific First Principle of Combining Fonts: keep one... More
