graphical user interfaces Articles & Videos

  • Toggle-Switch Guidelines

    On/off switches are UI elements that prompt users to choose between 2 mutually exclusive options, always have a default value, and provide immediate results.

  • Don’t Use Split Buttons for Navigation Menus

    Menu on hover, category landing page on click: we discuss challenges and solutions for replicating this pattern on touchscreens.

  • Input Controls for Parameters: Balancing Exploration and Precision with Sliders, Knobs, and Matrices

    Linked controls support coarse and fine parameter selection and ensure both ease of exploration and precision.

  • Cards: UI-Component Definition

    A “card” is a UI design pattern that groups related information in a flexible-size container visually resembling a playing card.

  • Augmented Reality: What Does It Mean for UX?

    AR technologies can impact the user experience by decreasing interaction cost, cognitive load, and attention switching.

  • Direct Manipulation: Definition

    Direct-manipulation UIs support interaction with visible objects of interest via physical, reversible, incremental actions that receive immediate feedback.

  • Slider Design: Rules of Thumb

    Selecting a precise value using a slider is a difficult task requiring good motor skills, even if the slider is well designed. If picking an exact value is important to the goal of the interface, choose an alternate UI element.

  • Maps and Location Finders on Mobile Devices

    Maps of business locations may be more visually appealing than a simple list view, but they introduce too many usability issues on mobile devices.

  • Closeness of Actions and Objects in GUI Design

    Users overlook features if the GUI elements (such as buttons and checkboxes) are too far away from the objects they act on.

  • Macintosh: 25 Years

    Although its individual features weren't new, the Mac offered integration, the expectation of a GUI, and interface consistency. Is the iPhone the Mac of mobile?

  • R.I.P. WYSIWYG

    Macintosh-style interaction design has reached its limits. A new paradigm, called results-oriented UI, might well be the way to empower users in the future.

  • Scrolling and Scrollbars

    Despite posing well-known risks, websites continue to feature poorly designed scrollbars. Among the ongoing problems that result are frustrated users, accessibility challenges, and missed content.

  • Checkboxes vs. Radio Buttons

    User interface guidelines for when to use a checkbox control and when to use a radio button control. Twelve usability issues for checkboxes and radio buttons.

  • The Anti-Mac Interface

    We reverse all of the core design principles behind the Macintosh human interface guidelines to arrive at the characteristics of the Internet desktop.