A Soapbox Speech: Successful web based projects require a
both a User Interface Designer and a Programmer to ensure optimum
effectiveness.
UI Design | Designer-Coder
| Web Graphics-Multimedia | Architect
vs. Programmer
RE: User interface design
Many people involved with the creation of
web sites and web based applications still do not realize the
need for a two person team made up of a User Interface Designer
and a Programmer. Traditionally the focus has been on the programmer/codewriter
as the essential must-have developer. As a result there are the
many lay-user oriented products are still badly designed from
a user interface point of view. (We are already stuck with some
interface conventions that are badly designed, but now industry
standard, because originally the programmers were doing the interface
design.)
The language of visual communications is
every bit as complex as a verbal language, and, to people who
are fluent in it, as universally powerful as the language of music.
But, contrary to music, it is fraught with cultural variations
that carry strong psychological messages. Only those visual language
linguists who have had a good deal of practical experience in
communicating with the broad range of cultures found on this planet
are truly adept at communicating with universal fluency.
The term "Human Factor Knowledge"
has been added to the contemporary tech-vocabulary. This is a
term invented by academic scientists as an umbrella for knowledge
about how peoples' eyes naturally flow, how the elements of design
can direct them and how the majority of minds process ideas, concepts
and work flow. To an educator in visual design this is an old-hat
concept. The root of successful design has always been in that
knowledge.
I am an academic specialist in the language
of visual communications. I have been published internationally
in regards to the application of this to performing arts environments.
Over the years, through teaching many classes made up of mixed
nationality students, I have had the opportunity to do practical
research which has fine tuned my knowledge and abilities.
Like any good designer/artist, I can even break "the rules"
for good design, when it is appropriate, to make the product work
. A good user interface guides the user to where they want to
go or where the owner of the web based product wants them to go.
It minimizes the number of clicks needed to get there. It prevents
them from wandering off in the wrong direction. Well designed
web based applications parallel traditional working processes
and do not require retraining and learning a different work process
mindset ignored to be able to use the product. It does not fall
apart when accessed from different brand browsers.
UI Design
| Designer-Coder | Web
Graphics-Multimedia | Architect vs. Programmer
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RE: Designer with coding experience
People who are very good at designing hypertext-concept projects
must to have an intuitive and spatially oriented mind like mine.
This is a fairly rare mindset in the over all human race.
People who are good at writing code must to have a linear and
relationally oriented mind; often the same kind of person who
is good a learning foreign languages. This is also a fairly rare
mindset in the over-all human race.
I happen to be someone who has the ability to force my mind
to switch over to functioning in the linear mode from the intuitive
mode, but it requires an enormous amount of mental energy to do
it. I can handle it in short bursts, but to do it all day long,
day after day, in a reliable, error-free way, is not possible.
However, this does mean that I am able to understand programming
principles and languages. The result is that I can truly collaborate
with the programmer in determining the optimal interactive technical
solution along with the optimal interface design solution.
UI Design
| Designer-Coder | Web
Graphics-Multimedia | Architect vs. Programmer
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RE: Web graphics and Multimedia Design
Designing for the web is still young as a medium. Working in
web media is a constant challenge of trying to keep up with technological
advances. Web graphics and multimedia have very specific technical
demands and a design point-of-view that is very different from
that used in print graphics or in interactive CDs that are merely
digital interactive print brochures.
Rules for good interface design have now been published widely
and anyone who follows them will produce an acceptable user interface.
The result is that a good look at the web will reveal that we
are drowned in McUserInterface designed websites. Truly good user
interface design produces a look and feel that it uniquely appropriate
to the entity it represents.
The majority of graphic artists that are tapped for web
design are from a print background. Their learned focus of design
is based on an exact size of page being view in totality at all
time. Each visual element in it is precisely spaced and tweaked
for visual importance. As a result, the success of web designs
done by print graphic designers is ultimately at the mercy of
the web graphics person who "webizes" the graphic elements,
the coders and the content writers in the design layout of the
"page" and interactive functionality. This is why my strong technical
(hardware and software) and coding knowledge, combined with years
of authoring in the hypertext literary style, makes me much more
strongly qualified to handle web and interactive multimedia design
projects than the majority of designers currently in the job market.
UI Design
| Designer-Coder | Web
Graphics-Multimedia | Architect vs. Programmer
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RE: Architect vs. Programming Engineer
If people have projects where the look and
feel to the user, the efficient functional flow, and easy expansion
with future growth is important, they emphatically need someone
like me in charge of the project and someone who is a programmer
code writer.
A parallel would be the integrated symbiotic
relationship between the building architect and the building contractor.
Like a building architect, I am able to gather information from
a wide and disparate range of sources, integrate seemingly unrelated
needs, aesthetic, practical and technical, and come up with a
whole structure that will facilitate the functionality and flow
and interrelationship of all those elements; and then put it into
a presentational format that can be understood by all involved
and used as a blueprint for the realization of the project.
Like a building architect, I am capable of
technically realizing the project, but I am much more valuable
staying in charge of the artistic vision, concentrating on being
the team leader and the liaison with the client.
Stephanie Schoelzel
© December 20, 1998
UI Design
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Graphics-Multimedia | Architect vs. Programmer
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