February 2007 Issue
Selection-Dependent Inputs
Published: February 20, 2007
In a previous Communication Design column, “Refining Data Tables,” I alluded to the importance of Web forms in online commerce, communities, and creation. As arbitrators of checkout, registration, and data entry, forms are often the linchpins of successful Web applications.
But successful Web applications tend to grow—both in terms of capability and complexity. And this increasing complexity is often passed on to and absorbed by a Web application’s forms. In addition to needing more input fields, labels, and Help text, forms with a growing number of options may also require selection-dependent inputs.
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Category: Columns
Envisioning the Whole Digital Person
Published: February 20, 2007
Our lives are becoming increasingly digitized—from the ways we communicate, to our entertainment media, to our e-commerce transactions, to our online research. As storage becomes cheaper and data pipes become faster, we are doing more and more online—and in the process, saving a record of our digital lives, whether we like it or not.
As a human society, we’re quite possibly looking at the largest surge of recorded information that has ever taken place, and at this point, we have only the most rudimentary tools for managing all this information—in part because we cannot predict what standards will be in place in 10, 50, or 100 years.
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Category: Columns
Effective User Assistance Design: Ten Best Practices
Published: February 20, 2007
In a utopian world, a product would be so perfect it would not need any user assistance at all. But in reality, products aren’t perfect, and users need assistance through different stages of their use. User assistance (UA)—in the form of manuals or online Help—guides users in their tasks, suggests better ways of getting their work done, and provides directions for troubleshooting their problems.
Designing effective user assistance is a challenge, especially within the available resources and time constraints. If you make a little extra effort and follow certain best practices, you can make your product’s user assistance a big success.
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Category: Features
Ensuring Accessibility for People With Color-Deficient Vision
Published: February 5, 2007
This article is Part IV of my series “Color Theory for Digital Displays.” It describes how you can use color in applications and on Web pages to ensure that they are accessible to people who have color-deficient vision.
If you do not consider the needs of people with
color-deficient vision when choosing color schemes for applications and Web pages, those you create may be difficult to use or even indecipherable for about one in twelve users.
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Category: Features