When I originally checked out Get Satisfaction, I was immediately impressed. However, it wasn't until I needed to get in and use it for myself that I really began to appreciate the depth of thought apparent in the interface.
Comments: 3 (view/add your own)Like many, I hate to see mindless copying or stealing of visual designs. When it comes to interface elements though, I feel exactly the opposite. I want to see sites reusing bits and pieces of interfaces. It's key to improving the usability of the web as a whole.
Comments: 4 (view/add your own)Oftentimes, there's an abundance of relevant information to display on the screen, and not enough space to display it. One way is to make efficient use of information that's already on the screen and recycle it by visually connecting it in a unobtrusive manner.
Comments: 3 (view/add your own)Having a clear vision and purpose for your application might seem like just a nice-to-have, but in reality, it's that vision and purpose that determines decisions at every crossroad. Any lack of clarity and strength of purpose will show through in the resulting application.
Comments: 7 (view/add your own)If there's anything I've learned about designing web applications in recent years, it's the fact that things change over the course of a project. Learning to embrace that fact and direct it towards a productive evolutionary process has made a significant impact on my work.
Comments: 12 (view/add your own)One of the more subtly powerful things we can do as designers is create a consistent and flexible visual language. Buttons are a common place where this type of activity manifests itself, and Amazon has traditionally done a very good job of this.
One of my favorite topics is the influence of business decisions on interface design. It's an unfortunate truth that the underlying business structure and decisions will invariably affect the interface. It's important to recognize this fact and work to improve both simultaneously.
Comments: 5 (view/add your own)One of the key requirements for creating any kind of issue tracker is making it easy to get data into the system. While the browser is the primary interface, I felt email also had to be a first class citizen for issue submission.
Comments: 4 (view/add your own)It's not uncommon to spend so much time on the big picture that we overlook the details. While I'm far from a typographical expert, my growing interest in typography has really helped draw my attention into more subtle details that add up to make a difference.
It's panel picking time, and Garrett Murray and I are hoping we can offer some insight into our design decisions for Simplelog and the issue tracker for SXSWi 2008.
We've taken a look at the concepts behind the issue life-cycle and workflow, and next we're going to see how the dashboard is playing out so far. For me, the dashboard is about quickly assessing the state of projects, and diving right in to managing them.
I've seen countless elaborate ways to link related or duplicate issues. While most of them get the job done, it's generally way more confusing than it needs to be. I considered a lot of different solutions, but in the end, there was one that stood out.
For my issue tracker, I've wanted a more natural process for updating issues. I decided that all activity would have to go through the comment form associated with each issue. This way any change in status, priority, category, or assignee could quickly and easily be associated with a comment.
Last time, I went into my vision of a simpler bug and issue tracking life-cycle. This time, I want to focus on one of the manifestations of a simpler process—the status bar.
It's been quiet around here, but things are about to pick back up. I've been spending all of my free time designing and developing an issue tracker that I'll be releasing as open source early next year. Until then, I'll be exposing and sharing the design and development process.