Archive for the ‘Design’ Category

Deliverables Design Prototypes Sketching Wireframes

Compared to wireframes, HTML prototypes – especially for first-timers – can take more time to generate an initial set of ideas. However, if you reset expectations and consider impacts to your initial productivity, you’ll be better setup for the longer-term advantages of prototyping.

Design Prototypes Sketching Strategy

Last year, EightShapes was engaged by The Heritage Foundation to create a publicly accessible online version of their published book, The Guide to the Constitution. A few weeks into the process, we’d brainstormed a bit and iterated a few times on a HTML prototype. The emerging design took a “classical” approach: home page with spotlights targeting [...]

Design Management

Get great at getting feedback. Ask the right questions, introduce your design to invite conversation, and have the right attitude.

Case Study Design Technique

I recently participated in a project that offered a good opportunity to partner with a content strategist. Though I’ve been in the business for more than a decade, this was my first content-rich design project after becoming more involved with content strategy. The project was a particularly good testbed since it was a small effort [...]

Design

In June I attended the Design Management Institute’s ‘Make It Happen’ conference in Seattle. Having never attended a DMI event, I was unsure of what to expect – speakers varied from software to industrial design, from academia and outside of the traditional design disciplines. The mix of disciplines helped set the tone: regardless of what [...]

Design Strategy Technique

The transition from design concept to implementation is often rife with problems. Requirements and expectations are unclear. New or unexpected constraints emerge. Scope nosedives. In the end, what we end up with is a far cry from what we imagined. This article discusses how to approach the transition from design vision to reality and steps to ensure a positive outcome.

Design

In the 15 years I’ve been doing information architecture, eight principles have emerged in my practice. They are not patterns per se — they don’t describe approaches to typical problems — but they do offer a starting point for grappling with difficult IA challenges. These principles deal exclusively with structural issues: they help designers think [...]

Design Patterns

Accordion forms, forms with collapsable panels, offer a new approach for requesting lots of information. Where step-by-step, screen-by-screen wizards once ruled, now the accordion form dominates.