Random Non Sequitur

Matt Gemmell asked a very thought-provoking question on Formspring yesterday, and I liked it enough to repost it here. I really think a lot could be said about this topic, and this just scratches the surface.

Q: To what extent has sci-fi (TV, movies, books) influenced your UX work?

A: That’s a great question. I think you can look at science fiction as our collective fantasy about technology. If you want to understand not how people use their computers but how they want to use them, popular sci-fi is the first place you should look.
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In Mac OS X applications, toolbar icons are the illustrative UI shortcuts that appear beneath the title bar. You’ll see a few different styles of these depending on the application, but generally speaking they are relatively small and colorful, meant to be easy to remember. If you plan to design toolbar icons, you should start with the section devoted to them in the Apple Human Interface Guidelines.

While the HIG has a lot of good information, it doesn’t go into the details of implementation, so I’m going to go through the process of how I would design a toolbar icon. I’ve chosen the iWork style because I really like how crisp and clear they are, and I think they are a good model to work towards.
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Ah, spring. Another Webstock has passed and SXSW is coming around the corner. I remember a time when I dreamed of going to the big web conferences, talking to exciting people working on exciting things, and meeting people I admired: Tantek Celik, Molly Holzschlag, Doug Bowman, Dan Cederholm. I started out in web design right as CSS was taking hold as a great way to make beautiful and flexible layouts. As my career unfolded I saw the growing popularity of Google, the introduction of Firefox, the beginning of the standards movement, and the explosion of AJAX, Rails, and web 2.0.

It’s easy to think I work in an an exciting, dramatic field that’s always pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, and continually reinventing itself in new and better ways. Users love the web, right? We’ve done a great job, haven’t we?
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We all know where this is going.

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One thing I’ve noticed as I work with clients is that many people, especially engineers, have little to no experience working with creative professionals. Sometimes this can lead to a tense relationship, so I’ve found it helps to lay out guidelines for interaction in a nice, explicit way. Here are a few of the more general points I end up repeating a lot.
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