Last week Google posted in its official blog that a new user interface design was available for Gmail. It is still in a test mode, but the users that like it can switch to it immediately. The new user interface design can be accessed by clicking on the button in the bottom-right corner called “Switch to the new look”.

One of the important innovations of the new user interface design is advanced email search options. The drop down menu for these options is now located in the same window as the search itself. There, a user can refine his search by contact, folder, date etc. without having to go to a different window. This possibility seems to be a major improvement for the users that have a large number of emails and use the web interface for email.

Another improvement of the new user interface design is a neater conversation view. Google added a social element to the email threads: users can now see profile photos of the person they are corresponding with. This new look creates an atmosphere of instant messaging, where users can see clearly which person is writing what.

Furthermore, the new user interface design has more flexibility. Users can customize the side bar with labels and the chat area. All boxes can be resized by using arrow buttons and the chat window can be removed altogether by clicking the button in the lower left if the user does not need it.

Apart from that, Google introduced elastic density and a variety of new HD themes to the new user interface design. These features make Gmail more colorful and adjust spacing between elements automatically depending on the user device’s properties.

Although Microsoft is synonymous with software it is also a hardware company and an innovative one at that, as the natural user interface design of the Kinect proves. One piece of hardware they themselves do not make are phones, having long killed the Kin phones before release. Furthermore, despite being roundly praised for its usability and user interface design, smartphones featuring Windows Phone 7 have produced lackluster sales. A deal with ailing giant Nokia represents Microsoft’s best chance yet of getting as many users as possible to be in a position to fall in love with Windows Phone 7’s user interface design. As of writing a Nokia smartphone running Windows Phone 7 is still forthcoming, yet a patent shows Microsoft has its eyes on creating their own unique smartphone.

What could be the implications of this patent on user interface design?

The basic premise of the patent is a modular device with a slide out section that can be filled with several modules depending on a user’s use case. In total the patent showcases four modules: a QWERTY keyboard, a game control pad, a secondary screen, and a battery module. Today smartphones are differentiated across these four niches, so to speak. Some phones feature a QWERTY keyboard, the Playstation phone features a game pad, battery cases are used to increase the tie you can use a smartphone, and a few phones have also tried to implement a dual screen etc.  In terms of user interface design the second screen holds the most promise. Nintendo’s DS handheld console has shown the great practicality of dual screens, with the second screen’s user interface design used to display vital information leaving the main screen’s user interface design uncluttered. The tiled user interface design of Windows Phone 7 could be made just as practical as users view, say, a YouTube video on the main screen while writing a text on the second.

Purpose of Corporate Blogs

Corporate blogs are a great tool for companies to keep their customers (as well as the greater public) in the loop and increase customer loyalty.
Corporate blogs are blogs with very specific purposes that can be divided into the following categories:

•    Communication: Corporate blogs should be used to communicate with customers and the public; this is the most significant reason for companies to have corporate blogs.  Corporate blogs provide customers and/or the public with direct lines of communication to the company’s employees or even executives, thus empowering customers, leaving them feeling like valued stakeholders.  Conversely, executives and employees also value interaction with customers so corporate blogs are an effective and valuable tool for both sides.

•    Marketing Products and Services: Corporate blogs are also an excellent way to advertise new products and services.  Companies can also obtain valuable customer/user feedback about new products which can help them improve their offers for the future.

•    Maintaining Reputation: Corporate blogs can also help companies maintain or improve their reputation within the public sphere because they can be marketed as the only reliable source for accurate information about a company or venture.  This is especially important with so many other unverified sources floating around on the internet.

Corporate blogs are not the same as traditional blogs.  Traditional blogs are usually maintained by individuals or groups as a way of sharing their thoughts, ideas, advice, and experience.  Corporate blogs are a part of business and as such their purpose is different.  Maintaining a corporate blog is an excellent way to make a business not only more visible, but also more successful.

This blog post is the second in a series of two about Contextual Design as a usability method.

The Contextual Design sequence

In the first post on Contextual Design we clarified what Contextual Design is and why it is important for creating usable UIs.  Now it is vital that we discuss how the Contextual Design process occurs. Contextual Design is a process that happens sequentially in the following hierarchical steps: Contextual Inquiry, Interpretation, Data Consolidation, Visioning/Storyboarding, User Environment Design, and Prototyping. Each of these steps is equally important in contributing to the synergy of the Contextual Design process and buttresses the resultant user interface design in a positive user experience.

•    Contextual Inquiry:  Contextual Inquiry is the crux of Contextual Design. It is used to reveal what people actually do and why they do it that way. Contextual Inquiry happens at the very beginning of the design process and calls for one-on-one field interviews observing subjects in their natural working or living environment doing what they would normally be doing.
•    Interpretation: The interpretation phase is when the data from all the interviews is analyzed and detailed work models are created in order to ascertain context of use and aspects of work that matter for the user interface design team. What matters here is looking at the interviews from a macro birds-eye-view level for key insights across the board.
•    Data Consolidation: Data consolidation is the level at which individual interviews are analyzed. An example of a good method of processing observations from a bottom-up design approach (piecing together systems to give rise to grander systems) for data consolidation purposes is by making affinity diagrams.
•    Visioning/Storyboarding: Visioning is akin to brainstorming, but distinctly it is the gathering of a cross-functional team in order to create stories or visions of how new product concepts, services, and technology can better support a user in accomplishing her tasks. After determining key issues and opportunities from the consolidated data, the visioning team sets out to generate new concepts by way of scenarios of use. These visions are then fleshed out further through the use of Storyboarding.
•    User Environment Design: User Environment Design is the stage of Contextual Design whereby the stories created begin to become more refined in terms of product and system requirements. What are the different parts of the system? What functions are available in each part? How do all these components support and enhance a user’s work?  Where in the user interface design scheme should they be integrated? User Environment Design seeks to answer these questions.
•    Prototyping: Prototyping is an efficient way of creating preliminary partially functional UIs that can be used to test the structure of a User Environment Design for usability issues. But prototyping is also great as a communication tool for stakeholders of a project to flesh out user interface design ideas. Prototyping can be done through the use of paper prototypes (hand drawn or printed out) or, better yet, through interactive wireframe prototypes.

Performing these steps is an art of itself but can be immensely helpful in creating superior UI designs.

For the people who are into screen design, Rapid Paper Prototyping is old school! But ever considered doing screen design on screen?

With pidoco’s web-based prototyping software, information architects and web developers can save valuable time, easily integrate other stakeholders and build better usability for the web.

Rapid Paper Prototyping has already been in the know for a while to get a web-application started. The idea is to sketch the basic concept on paper to be discussed within the team. This prototype will then be put through a refinement process by incorporating feedback from different stake holders. This paper prototype will eventually act as a rough guide for the whole project – from beginning to the end (but is there a real end?). Some screen-designers even use these very limited paper prototypes for performing usability tests. Revealing usability issues in the prototyping phase can save a lot of time and budget, since later alterations in the so called ‘finished’ website are minimized.

However, there are several drawbacks to Rapid Paper Prototyping.  Prototypes are difficult to add to the project repository and also difficult to different departments. Scanning paper prototypes and making them ‘clickable’ for web testing is also a time consuming task as we all know!

That is why many companies create their prototypes directly in MS PowerPoint or other diagramming tools and have them distributed to the relevant sources. True, that way one can share the data more effectively but it is not really more dynamic than copying a piece of paper handing it to the team. The prototypes still do not show the real capabilities for test user excitement:  links, dynamic menus and work-flows etc. cannot be reproduced effectively and need to be explained individually in long text. Again, more time and effort has to be invested to get the message across.

pidoco° has spotted this problem and made it their task to tackle it by providing a effective web-based interface design software.