The Player, the Web and the Interface

[JonO]

Its a little late here, so I'll expand my comments tomorrow.

Good. I'll be very interested and I certainly hope you don't let any real-world considerations like a job from interfering

I find that using techniques from scenario based design helps the programmer get into the mindset of the different types of users, which helps prevent the tunnel vision and assumption holding Grim was describing.

I first bumped into this approach reading Alan Cooper's books. His website is a great introduction to that concept. I think the man is brilliant. (And I got a couple of jobs by doing nothing but paraphrasing him for the entire interview.)

[quote='Ramblurr' pid='647' dateline='1301630081']
Another important distinction is between information design and interaction design. They are easy to conflate because they are often implemented at the same time. Information design focuses on identifying tasks and actions, and how to represent them in a way to facilitate understanding, whereas interaction design aims to ensure users are able to do the right thing at the right time.

Please talk more about this. The difference is something I have bumped into without having to deal with in a way that would help me learn it.

That PDF you linked is pretty informative, though personally I've always found a full GOMS analysis to be too cumbersome to do alone or in small teams. The concepts it attempts to model are important though, so its worth keeping them in mind when working on your design.

I agree. It may be because he was working in a university setting that he didn't consider the fact that there are still lone wolves and tiny startups like ours that need to use a subset, but it is better to pick and choose from the quiver of arrows he offers than to have nothing for your bow. (Kewl metaphor, huh?)