Design

Does the placement of a button on a web form, the texture of a steering wheel, or how lines of text appear on a sign really matter? Absolutely they do, and these topics (and so many others!) are what make all facets of design so fascinating.

PowerPoint is dead, and Prezi’s what killed it

Posted on Aug 12, 2010 in Design | 3 comments

Prezi. Sounds weird, doesn't it? But I'm sure "PowerPoint" sounded weird when people first heard about it, too (back in 1987!). I had a chance to use this online presentation tool for a guest lecture I gave on PHP and Web Services and was very impressed with it. So, PowerPoint: pack up your slides and move over... Prezi is here with its zoomable, rotatable canvas. It's just way more fun and more engaging to the audience.

Ignite presentation on a UW room availability web service

Posted on May 20, 2010 in Design, IT | 2 comments

Attending journalism conventions in high school (and afterward), I'd always go see presentations based on the recommendation of the journalism adviser. "You've gotta go to this one," he'd say, "even if you don't care about sports"—I sure didn't—"because the guy just lights himself on fire and gets into it." I wasn't sure what that meant exactly, but the presentations sure were energetic and fun. Well, despite their name, "Ignite" presentations don't actually light anyone on fire. So what are they? A distillation of a topic into its most salient points, and I'll be giving my first one later today; it's on the topic of a room availability web service at the University of Washington.

Why even small usability issues matter; or, Evite and Flash ads

Posted on May 4, 2010 in Design, Web Dev | 3 comments

Usability is as much art as it is science, and there are situations where the accepted usability best practices must be weighed against a very real need for advertising revenue. But when there's a disconnect between a good user experience and a desire for improved user demographics for advertising, it's clear to me what should win out: usability. That's why my recent experience on Evite was so frustrating: the company either didn't test their page (which doesn't seem likely) or they opted to promote their business desires over their users' experience.

Adobe's PDF-generation (and customer service-) FAIL

Posted on Dec 8, 2009 in Design, IT | 9 comments

Recently I worked on a problem at my job whose solution involved creating PDF files. Unfortunately, this process exposed me to some poor software design and horrible customer-service issues from Adobe, a company I usually like and whose products I respect. First, I had to deal with Acrobat Pro 9's handling of names when generating a lot of PDFs from a mail merge in Microsoft Word. Then, my error report to Adobe's own forum was snubbed.

ATM interface improvement, or "Yo no hablo español"

Posted on Oct 25, 2009 in Design, IT | 3 comments

ATMs certainly revolutionized banking for both the banks and customers. I'm a big fan of ATMs, but there is one glaring user experience oversight that I sure wish they'd correct: my language preference. My preferred language is English; why can't my bank remember that? While it's certainly true that a single click or button press is not gravely important issue, it is worth discussing from a user-experience standpoint. This post outlines why this should be fixed and presents a few ways it could be done.

Designing a real estate listing website

Posted on Sep 24, 2009 in Design, Life, Real Estate, Web Dev | 2 comments

After over 8 years, we're selling our condo in Kenmore, WA. Never one to rest on my laurels, I created a website to highlight the benefits of the unit, the building, and the neighborhood. What started out as a simple site to display some photos (by the talented Dylan Greene) quickly grew into an opportunity to flex some web-development muscle. Interested? Of course you are! Get details at http://scottbush.net/condo/

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