Author: Uday Gajendar

Other times, while crafting the visual design of a UI object, you need to exaggerate the difference, to make the object more prominent as opposed to an “accident” or “mistake” that’s only slightly emphasized. For example, if a widget is supposed to appear layered on top of another object, then dramatize the pixel movement and drop shadow for depth effect. And then scale it back gradually as you consider the entire composition. Go out far for drama, then bring it back in for balance.

When creating the visual design of a UI object, such as a calendar widget within a form layout, it’s important to consider the cumulative effect of multiple subtle visual cues, as opposed to several dramatic changes in color, line weight, fonts, lighting, etc, all at once. This can help prevent imbalanced visuals that awkwardly draw too much attention or visuals that are simply overpowering, thus undermining the composition overall. So, in this era of glossy, glowy visuals with drop shadow promiscuity, it’s important to remember how subtle changes can stimulate visual perception, in an eye-pleasing manner that maintains overall balance and cleanliness.

Coming up with an accurate, memorable name for an object within the interface of an enterprise app (or any product for domain-specific audiences as well) can be a very challenging task–but it doesn’t have to be! Simply focus on getting to the essence of what “it” truly is. Keep asking, “what is it” over and over again til you nail it, avoiding any and all marketing terms and gimmicky phrasing that try to make “it” sound cool or marketable. Focus on what it is for the user, in terms of their mental model and common jargon (for that industry or domain). Avoid the gimmicky.

Often the usability problems encountered with software products are due to faulty labeling. Nailing this can in itself resolve much of the interaction design issues!

This is totally from the the Paul Rand school of thought, as well as many other leading (and legendary) designers like Eames: Designers should leverage timeless principles (of form, content, quality) and embody a beauty (in all its multidimensional senses) in their work, outlasting momentary styles and fads. It’s admittedly an idealistic view that speaks to issues of craft and cultural value.

On the opposite end perhaps are those who seek to serve and influence the fashions of the day, whatever may be considered “cool” for the hip and savvy set. A former creative director of Nike and Quokka (now VP of Product Experience at Adobe) recently proclaimed that “we’re all fashion designers now”. Not too sure if I agree with that :-)

Couple quick examples of successful fashion-based adaptation:

* Madonna has done an extraordinary job morphing herself every couple years in terms of her style and music.
* Relatedly, MTV is a major commercial brand that must adapt to changing styles and fads to stay relevant to its savvy audiences, especially at a global scale!

You gotta mentally work through that idea towards implementation, carefully assessing the consequences for other members of the team (dev, design, QA, doc, PM, etc.) and overall impact on the product design direction. Consider the following questions:

What’s the impact on aesthetics? Does it deviate from pre-set styles (like CSS)? Does it introduce new (undesirable) modalities or unfamiliar behaviors inconsistent with the rest of the product? Does it interrupt the natural workflow? Is it something “cool” for the sake of hipness without real benefit to solving a user’s problem? Is it introducing scope creep given the current cycle/release? (ie, being a consultant it’s important to be mindful/respectful of the client’s situation, helps build cred and relationship)