Category Archives: Usability

London Underground UI Fail

You’d think replacing a magnetic board with a digital system would be a good thing, wouldn’t you? Well, not if you get the “user interface” completely wrong…

Also posted in Rant | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

iPad – The rise of the naturalistic user interface

Apple’s iPad applications make use of real-world objects in their user interfaces: books, newspapers, address books. What is it about the iPad that makes it a good platform for this kind of UI?

Also posted in Graphics, iPhone | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Why the Peggle mobile experience beats GTA

Peggle and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars. Two fantastic and very different iPhone games, but how is your enjoyment of them affected by the platform on which they run?

Also posted in Gaming, iPhone | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Pinned DataTips in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2

I’ve just noticed a nice little feature in Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2: pinned DataTips. Values displayed in the debugger as you hover over a variable can now be pinned in place and remain aligned with the source. They can even have annotations added… Tasty!

Also posted in Debugging, Visual Studio | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The 7 signs your UI was created by a programmer

Programmers are notoriously bad at creating good user interfaces. How can you tell if your app was designed by a programmer? (Hint: it’s easy).

Also posted in Excel, Rant, Software Development | Tagged , , , | 43 Comments