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Locus of Control presents topics that spark discussion among website creators and users, with a focus on enhancing web user experience. It regularly spotlights useful, innovative web applications as well as examples of exceptional design. About the author...Keep in Touch
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Monthly Archives: March 2009
Design Spotlight – Mar ‘09 Winner – Now Accepting Entries for Apr ‘09!
Congratulations to PixelMEDIA for winning the March 2009 Locus of Control Design Spotlight Award for their recently launched BreastCancerStories website. A total of 17 votes were collected for 3 nominated websites. BreastCancerStories won by a margin of 15 votes. Details of the original nominations can be found here.
Tutorial: Turn Your Sketches Into Clean, Sharp Vector Art
When you scan a sketch into your computer, the lines are often light and have fuzzy edges. Resizing the scan blurs or pixelates the image. You can use Photoshop to darken the lines, but they’re still not going to be as clean and sharp as if you vectored the sketch.
Vectoring your scanned sketches is great [...]
Error Prevention vs. User Satisfaction – What’s the Deal with Duplicate Form Fields?
Lately, it seems to be increasingly common to find web forms with duplicate fields, particularly for the email address. It’s a low likelihood that a user would make the exact same typo in both fields, so by ensuring that the two fields contain matching data, we can more thoroughly prevent user error.
In his “Eight [...]
Lessons to be Learned from Facebook’s Latest Homepage Changes
Normally I don’t post such negative commentary on Locus of Control, but I decided to make an exception this time. Regarding the recent homepage updates on Facebook, I would like to point out a few things that I think we can all learn from.
Lesson 1: Don’t lie to your users.
Facebook’s preview of the upcoming changes [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged facebook, information design, interface design, social, usability, user experience 17 Comments
Why the “Fold” Doesn’t Matter Anymore
At a recent meeting of the NHUPA, Will Powley from Mad*Pow gave a 10-minute presentation called “Newspapers Have Folds, Websites Do Not“. In this presentation, a study by ClickTale was mentioned in support of the notion that the “fold” should no longer be a primary concern for designers.
Kawaii Creations – Adventures in Bentomaking by Pikko
Lunch has never looked so cute! Adventures in Bentomaking is a blog about Japanese-style bento-box lunches. Pikko, a mother from Hawaii, somehow finds time to produce these culinary delights for herself and her family on a weekly basis. Each blog entry includes detailed photos and descriptions of how the featured bento was made.
Two New Tools for Quick Usability Testing
In a previous entry, I discussed the need for better UX design tools. Now, from the makers of OptimalSort, come two new tools for testing the usability of your IA and interface design.
Treejack
You input a sitemap in the form of a hierarchically structured list and assign tasks for test participants to perform.
Participants navigate through the [...]
Freebie – aMAZEing Desktop Wallpaper for March 2009
Here’s the third in a series of hand-drawn maze wallpapers, complete with monthly calendar! If your screen resolution is not listed below, feel free to comment and I’ll create another version for you.
Freebie – aMAZEing Desktop Wallpaper for April 2009