6 ms·

Ask news YC: Your best sources to learn about design & usability

58 points by sharpshoot 19y ago

Hey, what are the best blogs/websites you read to learn more about good design and usability? I'm sure this could help a few of us here.

german 19y ago
Kathy Sierra's, Creating Passionate Users. http://headrush.typepad.com http://headrush.typepad.com There you can find a lot of great posts about user experience.
e1ven 19y ago
Here are a few links from my bookmark folder on the subject, in no particular order: How to use contrast to your advantage- http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/rule-three-contrast-contrast-contrast/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/rule-three-contrast-co... Use colors that have varying intensities, not just differnet colors. Focus on how it looks in greyscale http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/becoming-a-master-designer-rule-two-limit-your-colors/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/becoming-a-master-desi... Visualizing Fitt's Law http://particletree.com/features/visualizing-fittss-law/ http://particletree.com/features/visualizing-fittss-law/ Software Has personality. http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/09/lightrooms_goals_1.html http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/09/lightrooms_g... Copy sites you like, such as: http://orderedlist.com/articles/single-line-css#comments http://orderedlist.com/articles/single-line-css#comments or http://www.joyent.com/ http://www.joyent.com/ How to make your designs suck less: http://jimwhimpey.com/blog/2007/simple-ways-to-help-your-design-suck-less-1/ http://jimwhimpey.com/blog/2007/simple-ways-to-help-your-des... Load faster, by doing a low-res version first. http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=464 http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=464 How to do sound design http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why_is_that_thing_beeping_a_sound_design_primer http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why_is_that_thing_beeping... More on Sound Design http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/03/22/how-to-make-user-interfaces-musical.html http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/03/22/how-to-make-user-... Use smart color pickers http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6434 http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6434 Whitespace Matters! http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace You can make a UI feel responsive, by minimizing the number of clicks http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813 http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813 Write Production UIs, never use placeholders http://a-simian-mind.blogspot.com/2007/03/user-interface-is-as-important-as-code.html http://a-simian-mind.blogspot.com/2007/03/user-interface-is-... A gradient Tutorial http://9rules.com/blog/2006/08/a-gradient-tutorial/ http://9rules.com/blog/2006/08/a-gradient-tutorial/ Aza's tips http://ajaxian.com/archives/death-of-the-desktop-by-aza-raskin http://ajaxian.com/archives/death-of-the-desktop-by-aza-rask...
- jsackmann 19y ago
  Wow. Thank you. (An up-mod didn't seem quite sufficient.)
  - e1ven 19y ago
    Always glad to help. The key thing is to read blogs of people who are better Usability than I (and possible you) ;) If you read other people's blogs, they find the interesting stuff for you. http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://daringfireball.net http://daringfireball.net http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ When you start to see that they keep linking to a site, and saying there's a good article there, then start reading that site too ;)
- whacked_new 19y ago
  Hey, the smart color picker link gives an error. Could you repost it please?
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
Nate 19y ago
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/
aantix 19y ago
Joel's book is a great introduction and a must read if you haven't taken a look before. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.... Jakob Neilson's site is a treasure trove of usability information. http://www.useit.com/ http://www.useit.com/ 37 Signals will often write blog posts outlining particular design decisions in their products. http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://www.37signals.com/svn/ For a more specific topic, I have been researching typography. Something really simple to do (for which I am in the process of doing); get your text baselines to line up ("baseline rhythm"). It will make your site easier to read. Here's some great writeups on the subject. http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/04/30/typography-baseline-rhythm-deciphered/ http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/04/30/typography-baselin... http://nubyonrails.com/articles/get-rhythm-in-your-baseline http://nubyonrails.com/articles/get-rhythm-in-your-baseline And here's an online tool that will generate a CSS file with all the appropriate measurements: http://topfunky.com/baseline-rhythm-calculator/ http://topfunky.com/baseline-rhythm-calculator/
juanpablo 19y ago
http://www.alistapart.com/topics/design/ http://www.alistapart.com/topics/design/ http://www.baekdal.com/articles/ http://www.baekdal.com/articles/ The book "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug is a classic.
- nextmoveone 19y ago
  http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758 http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134... Yup...I liked "Don't Make Me Think".
brlewis 19y ago
Jakob Nielsen is all about usability: http://useit.com/ http://useit.com/
kashif 19y ago
A List apart - www.alistapart.com
lkozma 19y ago
Edward Tufte's forum: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-new-answers?topic_id=1&topic=Ask+E%2eT%2e http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-new-answers?topic_...
- as 19y ago
  It all begins with Tufte. http://www.amazon.com/Envisioning-Information-Edward-R-Tufte/dp/0961392118/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-9609958-1943036?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192213725&sr=8-3 http://www.amazon.com/Envisioning-Information-Edward-R-Tufte... http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information-2nd/dp/0961392142/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-9609958-1943036?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192213725&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Informatio...
  - farnetto 19y ago
    Atwood blogs on Tufte with links cheatsheet "An Education for Analytical Design" http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000739.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000739.html
blader 19y ago
Some blogs from my Google Reader: Functioning Form: http://www.lukew.com/ff/ http://www.lukew.com/ff/ flow|state: http://miksovsky.blogs.com http://miksovsky.blogs.com Bokardo (social design): http://bokardo.com http://bokardo.com WeBreakStuff: http://blog.webreakstuff.com/ http://blog.webreakstuff.com/ 37signals: http://37signals.com/svn http://37signals.com/svn ParticleTree: http://particletree.com/ http://particletree.com/ Jensen Harris (Office 2K7): http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/ http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/ Usability in the News: http://www.usernomics.com/news/user-interface-design-news.html http://www.usernomics.com/news/user-interface-design-news.ht...
jkush 19y ago
This is a must read: The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0136500-8317427?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192215579&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp...
xg 19y ago
Fantastic Photoshop tutorials that focus on "polish" and a lot of design elements that are currently in vogue. http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/elements-of-great-web-design-the-polish/ http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/elements-of-great-web... http://psdtuts.com/interface-tutorials/making-a-message-strip-in-photoshop/ http://psdtuts.com/interface-tutorials/making-a-message-stri...
luccastera 19y ago
another good one: http://slash7.com/articles/2006/12/30/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-color http://slash7.com/articles/2006/12/30/6-things-you-need-to-k...
naivehs 19y ago
This is a great thread, will be really interesting to go through all these links. Here is another good one, the domain is pretty self explanatory http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm
rwebb 19y ago
We're looking for good examples of sticky signup processes. Asking users for the 'fun' info and sneaking in the necessary nuts, blots, and email confirmation later seems like a good way to go. Thoughts? Examples?
- rwebb 19y ago
  some good ones: http://pageflakes.com http://pageflakes.com http://widgetbox.com http://widgetbox.com https://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/new https://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/new http://netvibes.com http://netvibes.com
edw519 19y ago
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-4473380-9298029?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22edward+r.+tufte%22 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-4473380-9298029?ini...
reidman 19y ago
I'll toss another hat in Tufte's ring. His stuff can be pretty meta, but once the concepts are in your head, you start looking at design much differently. If I hadn't read 'The Quantitative Display of Visual Information' I think that my design work would be much more cluttered and confusing. Reading the book actually made me want to be a better designer -- I knew, instinctively and through his demonstrations, that my work was definitely not up to par. Any book that can cut through the dense pretenses of a cocky young designer deserves some respect ;D
liquidcool 19y ago
I found this article on web application form design to be a good primer: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html It's on the Functioning Form blog for interaction designers: http://www.lukew.com/ff/ http://www.lukew.com/ff/
dawie 19y ago
Users. Get an good analytics tools and watch what your users do.
masherrill 19y ago
I constantly check http://www.styleboost.com http://www.styleboost.com It's not really about usability but more like a barometer of what's considered good design these days. If I ever need design inspiration this is where I trek to first.
- asdflkj 19y ago
  "good design these days." Isn't good design supposed to be timeless, or something like that? Maybe the word you're looking for is fashion.
pius 19y ago
I'd highly recommend http://designinginterfaces.com http://designinginterfaces.com, the companion site to Jenifer Tidwell's eponymous O'Reilly book.
greendestiny 19y ago
I'm a big fan of information-architects.jp this article on web design typography is great: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typ...
pistoriusp 19y ago
Sometimes it's also helpful to experiencing good usability. So I suggest using OS X, after awhile I found myself looking at software in a different way.
mroman 19y ago
I find http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html to be a worthwhile resource, particularly owing to its being based on research.

58 points by sharpshoot 19y ago

Hey, what are the best blogs/websites you read to learn more about good design and usability? I'm sure this could help a few of us here.

german 19y ago

Kathy Sierra's, Creating Passionate Users. http://headrush.typepad.com http://headrush.typepad.com There you can find a lot of great posts about user experience.

e1ven 19y ago

Here are a few links from my bookmark folder on the subject, in no particular order: How to use contrast to your advantage- http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/rule-three-contrast-contrast-contrast/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/rule-three-contrast-co... Use colors that have varying intensities, not just differnet colors. Focus on how it looks in greyscale http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/becoming-a-master-designer-rule-two-limit-your-colors/ http://www.gomediazine.com/design-tip/becoming-a-master-desi... Visualizing Fitt's Law http://particletree.com/features/visualizing-fittss-law/ http://particletree.com/features/visualizing-fittss-law/ Software Has personality. http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/09/lightrooms_goals_1.html http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2007/09/lightrooms_g... Copy sites you like, such as: http://orderedlist.com/articles/single-line-css#comments http://orderedlist.com/articles/single-line-css#comments or http://www.joyent.com/ http://www.joyent.com/ How to make your designs suck less: http://jimwhimpey.com/blog/2007/simple-ways-to-help-your-design-suck-less-1/ http://jimwhimpey.com/blog/2007/simple-ways-to-help-your-des... Load faster, by doing a low-res version first. http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=464 http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=464 How to do sound design http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why_is_that_thing_beeping_a_sound_design_primer http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why_is_that_thing_beeping... More on Sound Design http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/03/22/how-to-make-user-interfaces-musical.html http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2007/03/22/how-to-make-user-... Use smart color pickers http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6434 http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6434 Whitespace Matters! http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace http://alistapart.com/articles/whitespace You can make a UI feel responsive, by minimizing the number of clicks http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813 http://tantek.com/log/2007/02.html#d19t1813 Write Production UIs, never use placeholders http://a-simian-mind.blogspot.com/2007/03/user-interface-is-as-important-as-code.html http://a-simian-mind.blogspot.com/2007/03/user-interface-is-... A gradient Tutorial http://9rules.com/blog/2006/08/a-gradient-tutorial/ http://9rules.com/blog/2006/08/a-gradient-tutorial/ Aza's tips http://ajaxian.com/archives/death-of-the-desktop-by-aza-raskin http://ajaxian.com/archives/death-of-the-desktop-by-aza-rask...

jsackmann 19y ago
Wow. Thank you. (An up-mod didn't seem quite sufficient.)
- e1ven 19y ago
  Always glad to help. The key thing is to read blogs of people who are better Usability than I (and possible you) ;) If you read other people's blogs, they find the interesting stuff for you. http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://daringfireball.net http://daringfireball.net http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ When you start to see that they keep linking to a site, and saying there's a good article there, then start reading that site too ;)
whacked_new 19y ago
Hey, the smart color picker link gives an error. Could you repost it please?

deleted 19y ago

[deleted]

Nate 19y ago

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/

aantix 19y ago

Joel's book is a great introduction and a must read if you haven't taken a look before. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000057.... Jakob Neilson's site is a treasure trove of usability information. http://www.useit.com/ http://www.useit.com/ 37 Signals will often write blog posts outlining particular design decisions in their products. http://www.37signals.com/svn/ http://www.37signals.com/svn/ For a more specific topic, I have been researching typography. Something really simple to do (for which I am in the process of doing); get your text baselines to line up ("baseline rhythm"). It will make your site easier to read. Here's some great writeups on the subject. http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/04/30/typography-baseline-rhythm-deciphered/ http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/04/30/typography-baselin... http://nubyonrails.com/articles/get-rhythm-in-your-baseline http://nubyonrails.com/articles/get-rhythm-in-your-baseline And here's an online tool that will generate a CSS file with all the appropriate measurements: http://topfunky.com/baseline-rhythm-calculator/ http://topfunky.com/baseline-rhythm-calculator/

juanpablo 19y ago

http://www.alistapart.com/topics/design/ http://www.alistapart.com/topics/design/ http://www.baekdal.com/articles/ http://www.baekdal.com/articles/ The book "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug is a classic.

nextmoveone 19y ago
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321344758 http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/032134... Yup...I liked "Don't Make Me Think".

brlewis 19y ago

Jakob Nielsen is all about usability: http://useit.com/ http://useit.com/

kashif 19y ago

A List apart - www.alistapart.com

lkozma 19y ago

Edward Tufte's forum: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-new-answers?topic_id=1&topic=Ask+E%2eT%2e http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-new-answers?topic_...

as 19y ago
It all begins with Tufte. http://www.amazon.com/Envisioning-Information-Edward-R-Tufte/dp/0961392118/ref=pd_bbs_3/103-9609958-1943036?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192213725&sr=8-3 http://www.amazon.com/Envisioning-Information-Edward-R-Tufte... http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Information-2nd/dp/0961392142/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-9609958-1943036?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192213725&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Display-Quantitative-Informatio...
- farnetto 19y ago
  Atwood blogs on Tufte with links cheatsheet "An Education for Analytical Design" http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000739.html http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000739.html

blader 19y ago

Some blogs from my Google Reader: Functioning Form: http://www.lukew.com/ff/ http://www.lukew.com/ff/ flow|state: http://miksovsky.blogs.com http://miksovsky.blogs.com Bokardo (social design): http://bokardo.com http://bokardo.com WeBreakStuff: http://blog.webreakstuff.com/ http://blog.webreakstuff.com/ 37signals: http://37signals.com/svn http://37signals.com/svn ParticleTree: http://particletree.com/ http://particletree.com/ Jensen Harris (Office 2K7): http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/ http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/ Usability in the News: http://www.usernomics.com/news/user-interface-design-news.html http://www.usernomics.com/news/user-interface-design-news.ht...

jkush 19y ago

This is a must read: The Inmates are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp/0672326140/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0136500-8317427?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192215579&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Inmates-Are-Running-Asylum-Products/dp...

xg 19y ago

Fantastic Photoshop tutorials that focus on "polish" and a lot of design elements that are currently in vogue. http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/elements-of-great-web-design-the-polish/ http://psdtuts.com/designing-tutorials/elements-of-great-web... http://psdtuts.com/interface-tutorials/making-a-message-strip-in-photoshop/ http://psdtuts.com/interface-tutorials/making-a-message-stri...

luccastera 19y ago

another good one: http://slash7.com/articles/2006/12/30/6-things-you-need-to-know-about-color http://slash7.com/articles/2006/12/30/6-things-you-need-to-k...

naivehs 19y ago

This is a great thread, will be really interesting to go through all these links. Here is another good one, the domain is pretty self explanatory http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/current-style.cfm

rwebb 19y ago

We're looking for good examples of sticky signup processes. Asking users for the 'fun' info and sneaking in the necessary nuts, blots, and email confirmation later seems like a good way to go. Thoughts? Examples?

rwebb 19y ago
some good ones: http://pageflakes.com http://pageflakes.com http://widgetbox.com http://widgetbox.com https://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/new https://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/new http://netvibes.com http://netvibes.com

edw519 19y ago

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-4473380-9298029?initialSearch=1&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=%22edward+r.+tufte%22 http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/105-4473380-9298029?ini...

reidman 19y ago

I'll toss another hat in Tufte's ring. His stuff can be pretty meta, but once the concepts are in your head, you start looking at design much differently. If I hadn't read 'The Quantitative Display of Visual Information' I think that my design work would be much more cluttered and confusing. Reading the book actually made me want to be a better designer -- I knew, instinctively and through his demonstrations, that my work was definitely not up to par. Any book that can cut through the dense pretenses of a cocky young designer deserves some respect ;D

liquidcool 19y ago

I found this article on web application form design to be a good primer: http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html It's on the Functioning Form blog for interaction designers: http://www.lukew.com/ff/ http://www.lukew.com/ff/

dawie 19y ago

Users. Get an good analytics tools and watch what your users do.

masherrill 19y ago

I constantly check http://www.styleboost.com http://www.styleboost.com It's not really about usability but more like a barometer of what's considered good design these days. If I ever need design inspiration this is where I trek to first.

asdflkj 19y ago
"good design these days." Isn't good design supposed to be timeless, or something like that? Maybe the word you're looking for is fashion.

pius 19y ago

I'd highly recommend http://designinginterfaces.com http://designinginterfaces.com, the companion site to Jenifer Tidwell's eponymous O'Reilly book.

greendestiny 19y ago

I'm a big fan of information-architects.jp this article on web design typography is great: http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typography-period http://www.informationarchitects.jp/the-web-is-all-about-typ...

pistoriusp 19y ago

Sometimes it's also helpful to experiencing good usability. So I suggest using OS X, after awhile I found myself looking at software in a different way.

mroman 19y ago

I find http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html to be a worthwhile resource, particularly owing to its being based on research.