The saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” is dead-on when it comes to information visualization. The ability to convey a message clearly, in the appropriate context, and make the information beautiful is no easy task. Information visualization is the graphic presentation of data. Done right, it’s like you’re looking through the eyes of [...]

Visual design is often considered an artistic realm. Many times people shy away from design or limit their involvement despite being completely capable of creating a great design. Learning the basics of design can help dispel the notion that it is only for the artistic. According to Dan Rubin, “there’s a big separation between being artistic and being creative.”

Web applications live in a strange world―half application, half website. Making a command look like a command can be tricky. Do you make it a button? Should it be a link? David discusses a number of considerations for creating or updating your application’s visual design

For years, we’ve been touring the world talking about designing web sites. At every presentation we’ve given, someone approaches us and asks the tough question: “Does this apply to web-based applications?” It’s a tough question because the answer often is Yes and No. Yes, good design practice is good design practice and it applies no [...]

Web applications live in this strange world, half application, half web site. Something as simple as making a command look like a command, becomes difficult quickly. Do you make it a button? Should it be a link? Visual design problems affect an application’s success in a variety of ways. In the mildest form, they slow [...]

Often, when we talk of finding inspiration for our visual design techniques, we turn to the discipline of fine arts. From the rich history of the arts, we can see many parallels between the artist’s work on the canvas and the designer’s work on the screen. Because much training in visual design often comes out [...]

There’s an on-going debate in the design community: are teams better off with generalists or specialists? Those taking the generalist side argue that a breadth of abilities helps more. On the specialists’ side, they claim it is the depth of specific abilities delivering the benefit. From our research in what makes up the most successful [...]

The User Interface Conference is a 15-year tradition of building up the designer’s skill set. Each year our team of expert instructors gets better and better. These are people so rich in experience, we could just sit around for days listening to their stories on how they’ve achieved their success. This year’s topics are an [...]

The airline industry is well-known for the wrath and frustration it inspires in its customers. Usually this manifests itself in shouting at gate agents or long, angry blog posts about being trapped on the tarmac for hours without rescue. Recently, a new kind of manifestation has emerged: redesigning. Professional designers, frustrated by the experiences they [...]

Hugh Griffith from Boise asks Jared and Robert, what happens when you swap radio buttons and checkboxes with more stylish graphic replacements?