Tag: John LeMasney

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26 of 365: Control #design principle

26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 - Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
26 of 365 – Control design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Good control design in a system allows for the ease of use for new users (beginners) or complex, customizable use by seasoned users (experts).  A new or inexperienced user of a system will benefit from fewer options, and a simple interface, where an expert user benefits from a customizable, flexible interface that offers more direct access to the functions they use most. Some systems, such as public kiosks, should assume that most users will be new ones, since anyone with ability in that same environment probably has a more dedicated interface to use than the kiosk, e.g. an employee computer.

In this illustration, I’m showing how I designed control on a consulting project using WordPress by offering an interface with both beginner and expert controls.

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25 of 365: There’s a little Carlton Banks in all of us.

25 of 365 - there's a little Carlton Banks in all of us by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
25 of 365 - there's a little Carlton Banks in all of us by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
25 of 365 - there's a little Carlton Banks in all of us by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
25 of 365 – there’s a little Carlton Banks in all of us by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

So, I decided to break with the design principles and do something kind of fun today. My friend Justin Hoenke, a fabulous librarian and one of my favorite humans ever, posted the selfie you see in the first quadrant. I recently saw a meme using Carlton Banks (of Fresh Prince fame), and decided to use Justin’s fun pic to do my own Carlton meme. I missed my post yesterday, so another will be coming soon today.

In the GIMP, I opened Justin’s picture, and sized it down to a quarter of the original image size. I brought it in again as a layer, sized it down less, moved it into place, and added a layer mask by selection for the second quadrant so that the rest of the picture was not overlapping any of the other quadrants. The same for the third and fourth, except that I started to munge his iris together to prepare you for the appearance of Carlton in the last quadrant. For Carlton, I added an elliptical selection the size of Justin’s iris, and made it into a layer mask, then played with layer styles and transparency until it looked like Carlton was inside Justin’s eye. Without the stamp tool to munge the iris, Justin’s pupil would have obfuscated parts of Carlton’s face.

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24 of 365: Contour Bias #design principle

24 of 365 - Contour bias design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
24 of 365 - Contour bias design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
24 of 365 - Contour bias design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
24 of 365 – Contour bias design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Contour Bias is a well-studied theory that shows that humans prefer rounded objects and choices over angled ones. The more angled, the more that human brains reacted with activity in the brain associated with fear and flight. The studies also made sure to remove objects that might normally have a fear based reaction, such as knives.

In this illustration, I show rounded objects and the same objects modified to have a more angular form. According to theory, you should be more attracted to, or choose, the more rounded form.

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23 of 365: Constraint #design principle

23 of 365 - Constraint design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
23 of 365 - Constraint design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
23 of 365 - Constraint design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
23 of 365 – Constraint design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Constraint is built into systems to allow limits to negative actions a user might otherwise take in that system. In mechanical systems where too much power, volume, or other resources could be over-applied, constraints prevent the user from doing so. We also can be psychologically or physically constrained from entering dangerous areas by a do not enter sign, or areas where our presence might cause alarm or discomfort, such as a bathroom intended for the opposite sex.

In this illustration, I made a constrained variable slider control going from low to high, which does not allow for setting too low or too high.

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22 of 365: Constancy #design principle

22 of 365 - Constancy design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
22 of 365 - Constancy design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
22 of 365 - Constancy design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
22 of 365 – Constancy design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Constancy is the idea that we see a particular object in the size, color, shape, feel, and other senses that we expect. We always see humans, for instance, in the same way. We expect that they will be 6 foot tall or less, and see multiple humans in that context. If we introduce comparative objects that we recognize the size of, it will alter our perception of scale.

In this illustration, I decided to alter the relative size of human silhouettes to expand the depth of the piece.

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21 of 365: Consistency #design principle

21 of 365 - Consistency design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
21 of 365 - Consistency design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
21 of 365 - Consistency design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com
21 of 365 – Consistency design principle by John LeMasney via lemasney.com

Consistency is important in design because it allows you to create the same quality of experience across pages (such as the use of grids in magazines), spaces (the common layout of department stores of a chain), objects (the dashboard of a car), buttons (standardized web browser dialogs), or other design elements. It allows for recognizance in the sense that very particular colors (Facebook blue), fonts (Marlboro font), layouts (Target stores), or uniforms (Best Buy blue and khaki) will breed familiarity and comfort despite a difference in place, space, or format.

In this illustration I used the Burger King logo as a basis for a genre called ad-busting, where the highly recognized brand becomes a vehicle for a countermeasure to the brand, in this case, Coronary King, associating the mostly high fat foods sold at Burger King with coronary disease.

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