Here’s my advice for Stephen Few, who is being urged to create e-books of his great books on information design. [ The urgings appear in comments on his blog post on publishing ]
For e-book creation, an author of design-oriented content has to consider several major issues. (Several of these you’ve already mentioned, but I got into essay mode.)
What should the digital experience be for the reader?
… MORECheck out this BBC video on usability trends in designs of products. Five minute of voiceover, plus sound bites from manufacturers.
I was especially interested in:
“Nikon has added live animation to [the UI of] some of its newer cameras.” (timepoint 1:30)
The Beeb’s text under the video uses extreme phrases to catch attention, such as “why the user manual could be a thing of the past,” but here are some of the real take-aways:
Hardware manufacturers are looking to software for models:
I wonder if other philosophical positions could be expressed in a dialog box?
A primer on user assistance for startups.
I think two design choices can help a user learn new software without requiring her to read “documents.” They are:
I see many software interfaces that a few minor tweaks could make more self-explanatory. For example:
