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Join my intensive (and fun!) lecture/ workshop course. Sign up now!

Interaction Design course: Go from zero to interaction designer in just three days.

You may be coming in cold from engineering or graphic design. You may already be an interaction designer wanting to "fills in the blanks," establishing a more solid theoretical and practical base. I've aimed this course at all of you, covering the needs of both individual contributors and managers.

Join me as I teach the Apple method and show you how to not only organize for and come up with successful designs, but sell them to engineering and upper management.

It's intensive, yes: A one-semester-equivalent with a strong, real-world bias. However, we have a lot of fun along the way, and you'll leave having worked with a team to design and build a complete project, so you will have not only learned, but experienced everything taught.

User Experience Conference Website There's more than my course at an NN/g conference. You'll find a breadth of other specialized courses and networking opportunities that will put you and your company at the leading edge of the design curve.


First Principles of Interaction Design, Revised & Expanded

The largest single change I have made to my website ever, this is an up-to-the-minute short course and useful review of the fundamental principles of contemporary human-computer interaction design principles, with new examples and discussion covering mobile, wearables, traditional apps, connected devices, and the web...


Providing Predictable Targets

It doesn't matter how fast people are with a mouse or with their fingers, if they can't find the target, they're going to be kind of slow it hitting it. Hiding targets by either moving them around or even making them invisible has become a trend, and it needs to stop. Here's how you can ensure your users have predictable targets every time...


The Third User, or Exactly Why Apple Keeps Doing Foolish Things

The User Experience (UX) community stands on the sidelines, mouths agape, watching as Apple does one seemingly foolish thing after another, such as hiding vital controls like the scroll bar, yet Apple's sales continue to climb even as usability suffers. Apple is doing this to support a user the UX community seldom even considers, but to the detriment of all their other users. This is how can Apple achieve their same end without making usability suffer & how the rest of us can increase our success by supporting that third user...


The Apple iWatch

The Apple iWatch will fill a gaping hole in the Apple ecosystem. It will facilitate and coordinate not only the activities of all the other computers and devices we use, but a wide array of devices to come. Like other breakthrough Apple products, it's value will be underestimated at launch, then grow to have a profound impact on our lives and Apple's fortunes...


Browse or Search: Which One Deserves to Go?

When Reader Craig Saunders threw down the gauntlet, I was forced to decide. That was the easy part. Supporting that decision with a new design was a bit more challenging. How'd I do?...


Top 10 Reasons the New Google News Sucks

In 2002, the original Google News team worked out exactly how aggregated news should be presented. Millions of people fell in love with the clean, clear, efficient design. It was a classic. Then, a new group just had to change it...


Apple & the Dark Cloud of Censorship

Apple has always seen itself and has always been a force for good. Now, its own success threatens that. Apple's clumsy attempts at censorship has put the company in a box. Here's at least one graceful way out...


Mac & the iPad, History Repeats Itself

Steve Jobs has a method, a tried-and-true formula for producing exciting, innovative products that open up new markets. He not only used it for producing the iPhone and iPad, he was already using it back in the early 1980s with the invention of the Macintosh computer. Here's his secret...


How to Achieve Painless Registration

If your goal it to drive away new visitors and eliminate profits, registration is the way to go. However, though most of us try our best to avoid it already, sometimes we can't. Here are some tricks to eliminate registration entirely and, when that won't work, to make it seem so desirable and reduce it to such a simple process that people will actually register.


Restoring Spring to the iPhone/iPod Touch Springboard

The Springboard (Desktop) on the iPhone is great if you have perhaps 30 apps. It begins to show signs of distress at 60, and it absolutely tops out at 180. This does not compare favorably with the 85,000+ apps already released for the iPhone. People's phones are filled up, and they are ceasing to buy. That's bad news for all. Here's Tog's solution...


Bento Schmento

Bento is FileMaker's attempt to fix the interface of Apple's core applications. Talk about the tail wagging the dog! True enough, it's a beautiful tail, but it's only serving to make the aging dog look just that much more mangy. Time for a radical change...


Inclusive Design, Part 1

For years, we've had a small, dedicated group of accessibility specialists working in isolation to develop targeted solutions exclusively for people with profound disabilities. That effort is now giving way to inclusive design, an approach that makes life better not only for those with profound disabilities, but for everyone.

Part 1 looks at some surprising facts on disability you might find personally disturbing.


Inclusive Design, Part 2

In Part 1, I tried to convinced you to do inclusive design. Now, here's how to do it, or at least how to get started, along with some case studies of projects both successful and unsuccessful. These case studies help illuminate pitfalls to avoid and will also give you some good material to help sell your companies on embracing this new, profitable way to approach accessibility.


What should I read next?

You will find a wealth of material here, from more than 75 columns on human-computer interaction design to articles on travel and even favorite quick recipes. No other website gives you both hard-hitting critiques of the lastest consumer electronics plus a recipe for a no-fail apricot soufflé. You can dedide whether that's a good thing.

  • Previous Columns & Papers
    The collected works of asktog.com

  • Basics
    Fundamentals of design

  • Reader Mail
    Interesting design quandaries posed by readers and Tog's solutions

  • Resources
    Offsite resources invaluable whether you are just learning, are a design professional, or are seeking the services of design and testing professionals.

  • Starfire
    Sun Microsystem's Starfire project predicted the World Wide Web.




Bruce Tognazzini is a recognized leader in human/computer interaction design. As Chief Designer at Healtheon/WebMD, he helped establish WebMD as the premiere healthcare website. Before that, he was Distinguished Engineer for Strategic Technology at Sun where he led the Starfire Project that predicted the rise of the World Wide Web. During his 14 years at Apple Computer, he founded the Apple Human Interface Group and acted as Apple's Human Interface Evangelist. He has rejoined his long-time colleagues as a principal of the Nielsen Norman Group.

See About Bruce Tognazzini for more information.

 

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