Kahn Design | Mix

“Balsamiq Mockups” is a cool new app for Mockups

This is a terrific tool and app for mocking up interactive media. I found it very easy to learn and useful. The hand drawn look of the elements reinforces the “work in progress” & conceptual nature of mockups. It is still a work in progress but very usable and worth $75. balsamiq.com

Things I would add or change:

• I want to see small previews of pages at the bottom of the work area (larger on-hover). It is difficult to identify the page or remember what the page content is. Similar to the Mac OS Dock magnification.
• Add back and forward buttons.
• Increase tool box legibility by reversing the light text and dark background. (small light text on a dark background is hard to read)
• The app may freeze up once in while and needs to be more stable.

A hysterical and enlightening UI presentation

Jared M. Spool, If you’ve ever seen Jared speak about usability, you know that he’s probably the most effective, knowledgeable communicator on the subject today. His presentation: “Revealing Design Treasures from The Amazon”, is a delight to watch. He’s been working in the field of usability and design since 1978, before the term “usability” was ever associated with computers. Here is the link to his presentation.

Website Dimensions

To maximize real estate on screen. I suggest you use 980 width and a 600 px height for critical information.

The current trend is that more and more computers are using a screen size of 1024×768 pixels or more: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

With the above in mind, 1010 x 610 px is the maximum area available within a browser window for the site content – critical navigation & info should be within this area.

Below is a list of major website widths and depths:

12/5/08

1000: wired

980: apple

980: google video

997: time

985: cnn

985: la times

970: ny times

970: bbc

960: youtube

950: yahoo

average width = 978px

DEPTH:

the depth varies depending on the sites content and the browser font settings.

2800: wired

1020: apple

1200: google video

2200: time

2500: cnn

3030: la times

3300: ny times

1750: bbc

1150: youtube

1150: yahoo

average depth = 2010px