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Snook drops SMACSS

One of my web heroes Jonathan Snook has released a great digital book (website, ebook and print versions) about writing better CSS called SMACSS. I have read and re-read this thing several times already:

SMACSS (pronounced “smacks”) is more style guide than rigid framework. There is no library within here for you to download or install. SMACSS is a way to examine your design process and as a way to fit those rigid frameworks into a flexible thought process. It is an attempt to document a consistent approach to site development when using CSS.

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Getting Real from 37signals

Getting Real is now available for free as a PDF book. It has been a few years since I last read it but I remember it fondly:

Want to build a successful web app? Then it’s time to Get Real.
Getting Real is a smaller, faster, better way to build software.
Getting Real is about skipping all the stuff that
represents real (charts, graphs, boxes, arrows, schematics,
wireframes, etc.) and actually building the real thing.
Getting real is less. Less mass, less software, less features,
less paperwork, less of everything that’s not essential (and
most of what you think is essential actually isn’t).
Getting Real is staying small and being agile.
Getting Real starts with the interface, the real screens that
people are going to use. It begins with what the customer
actually experiences and builds backwards from there. This lets
you get the interface right before you get the software wrong.
Getting Real is about iterations and lowering the
cost of change. Getting Real is all about launching,
tweaking, and constantly improving which makes
it a perfect approach for web-based software.
Getting Real delivers just what customers need
and eliminates anything they don’t.

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The Verge reviews – ebook readers

The verge has a fantastic collection of product reviews for dedicated ebook readers on the market. Believe it or not the Amazon Kindle is not the only reader on market. Be sure to make use of the sites ‘filter’ feature which makes comparing products an enjoyable experience.

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What do we now hunt when buying books? Data

Craig Mod writes about hacking book covers:

…with the present digital inflection, the role of the cover is changing radically; disappearing in some cases. It doesn’t need to shout anymore because it doesn’t serve the same purpose.

This shift presents a wonderful chance for designers to break from thinking of a cover as an individual asset, and certainly a chance to break from a tight coupling with the marketing department. In a sense, it’s a chance to play again. To hack. And I can’t help but feel that elements of the design of our future digital books should take to heart the craftsmanship and metered rationality embedded in so much Japanese book design.

It is the same with music, I only use the data views within itunes and never the cover flow view.

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Print books better than ebooks for learning?

Tony Bates points to some new work from the University of Leicester that suggests physical books may be better for deep learning:

This excellent article looks at research done at the University of Leicester, and also draws on experience from a number of people, that suggests that ‘physical books are best when you want to study complex ideas and concepts that you wish to integrate deeply into your memory……This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a place for e-text books or computerized courseware, however. Different media have different strengths.’

Check it out for yourself  Do we learn less from e-books?

I have been scooping up ebooks to learning web design related topics very happily, and I don’t make notes in the margins of print books either. Tony comments that some of the problem may be the ‘experience’ of the devices we read on.

I will keep an eye on this.

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Uses for ebooks

Despite having been around for years, ebooks are still very underutalised in education. There are two types of ebook to consider. Firstly, those books made available from the publishers and other writers. Secondly, self-published books that you produce yourself. I am not sure how much we can shape the path that the academic publishers are on at present so will focus on self-publishing of digital books.

There are plenty of uses for print books in education and currently the main driver for education ebooks is to replicate existing print books in digital form.

For the most part this means simply scanning print books and using Adobe PDF as the ebook file format. The scans are often of poor quality and do not take advantage of the power features of the format.

This underlying theme will continue but the most exciting area will be finding new uses for books that take advantage of what being digital can offer.

Why now?

The growth of commercial ebooks led largely by the ease with which we can now distribute and view ebooks on our mobile devices (laptops, phones and dedicated readers) has shone a light on applications for education.

There hasn’t been much recent research on producing digital books for eduction so I hope posts like this and the work JISC will be doing this year will contribute to the start of something bigger.

ebooks can be accessed and read  across multiple  platforms:

  • There are dedicated ebook readers (to remain niche?)
  • Mobile phones
  • Computers and tablets
  • Printed out

Uses for digital books

  1. Text books (ebooks textbooks)
  2. Course supplement
  3. Promotional books e.g. prospectus
  4. Course handbooks
  5. Workbooks
  6. Reading lists
  7. Reference book
  8. Monograph
  9. Research e.g. journals
  10. Collecting themed work e.g. blog posts

In a future post I will explore the unique opportunities that digital books can offer.

References

JISC – Digital monogragh technical landscape study

JISC Digital Media – Introduction to ebooks

JISC Digital Media – Getting started with ebooks

Craig Mod – Post-artifact books and publishing

 

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BUG: The Top Ten Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People

Susan Weinschenk gave an evening talk to the Bristol Usability Group on “The Top Ten Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People“. These are 10 things from her book 100 Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People. Below are my highlighted notes:

  • We have 3 brains (new, Mid and Old) which affects our view and reaction to the world.
  • People use their peripheral vision more than their central vision. Eye-tracking may not be as useful as we think as it is our ‘central’ vision – be careful
  • The Fusiform Facial Area describes our facial recognition system. We pay attention to faces, particularly those staring back at us (e.g. images on a website). Uses our mid-brain. Mixing multiple faces is creepy to us – think Tom Hank’s character in The Polar Express.
  • People want choice but too much choice de-motivates us and we choose nothing. The often referenced 7+/- two items (George Miller) that humans remember 7 items, is a myth. It is more like 3-4 items (Nelson Cowan 2001) and we only focus on one thing at a time. Thus limit choice.
  • We tend to design in a way that works for us rather than the users. This confirms that user testing is vital.
  • Understanding mental models is very important so that we don’t just design for ourselves. Our experiences between the ages of 8-12 shape our views for life. The demographic (30-40) are designing most of the UX experiences, yet are the smallest demographic which is a problem.
  • The speaker and listeners brain’s sync ‘speaker-listener neural coupling’ (Stephens, Grey + Husson, U 2010). Hence why video is so powerful as it has movement to grab attention and then the audio allows us to get in sync unlike text.
  • People have ‘weak ties’ of 150+ and ‘strong’ ties of -150 according to Prof Robin Dunbar. Something like Facebook is typically used for fewer people and is an example of a strong tie. Twitter, where people tend to follow larger number of people is an example of a weak tie.
  • Beauty is important to us. Based on research, websites should take advantage of beauty. A site could aim to be clear yet slightly unpredictable. People prefer curves to straight things). Beauty is in the eye of the unconscious, Tractinsky, et al.
  • Story telling is great. The brain processes information best when told a story.
  • Images can tell a story. For example if we hear a story about pain we know we are safe but our brain still acts like we are in pain without the ‘physical’ pain. Singer, T., et al. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but not the sensory components of pain
  • People expect technology to follow human to human interaction.

 

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Understanding user-centred design workshop

Stu Church from Pure Usability ran a full day workshop talking and demonstrating the benefits of a user-centred approach to JISC funded projects. Here are my notes:

  • Project issues include the need to address user-centred design for searching, showing resources and supporting user-contributions to collections.
  • A user-centred process is the key to success and can be applied at all stages of a project (never too late to start!)
  • Benefits include improved credibility, reputation, visits and user happiness
  • ISO 9241-210 – Human-centred design for for interactive systems
  • Key elements include user goals & needs, user research and evaluation
  • Start with your business goals and then see what you can do to make the user experience as great as it can be
  • Have a snappy sentence that you can always refer to about the ‘UX vision’, a great recent example from Mark Boulton ‘A make new mantra: A statement of design intent‘ which for CERN is to “create wonder”
  • Identify user requirements and user stories
  • Rapidly design, prototype an refine
  • Evaluate to get insights and measure performance
  • You can do loads yourself without a professional to get quite far – then get pro’s for the harder pinch-points
  • So what are you waiting for?!