“As the Web has grown, the cost of getting a new application online has plummeted. Web hosting services with unlimited bandwidth and storage now cost less than ten dollars a month. Free open source platforms can easily power the back-end of an application. Free development toolkits for client-side programming (JavaScript) and styling (CSS) make building the front-end of an application much faster. In aggregate, these factors enable a new Web application to get in front of a global audience very quickly and easily.” (Luke Wroblewski – UXmatters)

“The new Windows 7 desktop experience, including the new taskbar and Aero Snap, is both a major user experience change for Windows and an early success story. How did we go about evolving pieces of UI that haven’t seen major change since 1995? Come hear about our design process and see the evolution of the design through sketches and prototypes. Find out about our challenges and learn how we used iteration, developer collaboration and design principles to increase customer satisfaction and enthusiasm.” – (Stephen Hoefnagels – MIX09 videos)

“What about unarticulated needs? The data plus intent shows the ‘known world’ and ‘known solution space’, but one role we have is to be forward thinking and consider needs or desires that are not clearly articulated by those who do not have the full time job to consider all the potential solution spaces. The solution space could potentially be much broader than readily apparent from the existing and running product—it might involve a rearchitecture, new hardware, or an invention of a new user interface.” – (Engineering Windows 7)

“At the Computer-Human Interaction 2009 conference last week, researchers showcased many new and innovative ways to interact with machines, from smarter Web browsers to new interactive tables. But the event is also an opportunity to demo more far-out ideas for computer interaction. Here are five of the more unusual projects on show at the event.” – (Technology Review)

“This seminar intended to gather a group of about 25-30 participants who will exchange ideas, views, and case study results that address the seminar’s themes. We aimed at discussing methodologies and measures in the study of visual aesthetics in HCI, to explore design antecedents of aesthetic interactive systems, as well as consequences of aesthetic design or aesthetic experience in HCI. We anticipated that the outcome of the seminar will contribute to clarifying the concept, provide an overview of existing practical resources such as measurement scales, solidify the body of knowledge in this area, and generally spark interest in aesthetics in the HCI community.” – (Seminar)

“Computer scientists from around the world will gather in Boston this week at Computer-Human Interaction 2009 to discuss the latest developments in computer interfaces. To coincide with the event, we present a roundup of the coolest computer interfaces past, present, and future.” – (Duncan Graham-Rowe – Technology Review)

“Human-computer interaction (HCI) is an area of research and practice that emerged in the early 1980s, initially as a specialty area in computer science. HCI has expanded rapidly and steadily for three decades, attracting professionals from many other disciplines and incorporating diverse concepts and approaches. To a considerable extent, HCI now aggregates a collection of semi-distinct fields of research and practice in human-centered informatics. However, the continuing synthesis of disparate conceptions and approaches to science and practice in HCI has produced a dramatic example of how different epistemologies and paradigms can be reconciled and integrated.” – (John M. Carroll)

“Motivation is an important factor in any kind of online interaction or transaction. People need a little encouragement when they’re not really convinced they should take any action or are uncertain about what action to take next. As users perform tasks online, they need to understand what’s happening and expect you to help them move forward. This article discusses the responsibility of a user interface to provide recommendations along a user’s path of interaction.” – (Afshan Kirmani – UXmatters)

“Has your boss or a client ever asked you to review a user interface for a Web or desktop application? Perhaps the request went something like this: Can you just look over these new screens for us? Oh, and can you check the error messages, too? It won’t take long! And, by the way, we ship next month.” – (Rhonda Bracey – UXmatters)

“The work is devoted to a problem of search of metaphors for interactive systems and systems based on Virtual Reality environments. The analysis of magic fairy tales as a source of metaphors for interface and virtual reality is offered. Some results of design process based on magic metaphors are considered.” (Vladimir L. Averbukh – Journal of HCI Vistas)

“We’re coming up on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10. I’m a big supporter of this, and of Amnesty International, which works to protect these rights. Which got me to thinking: why isn’t there a list of users’ rights anywhere? What is the baseline that all users of every product everywhere should expect? So using the UDHR as a starting point, I drew one up.” (Dan Saffer – Kicker Studio)

“Norman’s law: The number of hours per day spent maintaining our equipment doubles every 18 months.” (Donald A. Norman) – courtesy of thehotstrudel

“If HCI wants competence in the cultural dimensions of interaction design, it must first have literacy in the intellectual disciplines that specialize in them.” (Jeffrey Bardzell – Interaction Culture)

“According to the Siri PR pitch, the product is ‘a new interaction paradigm for the consumer Internet experience that applies intelligence at the interface.’ (…) If we want our technology to have world-changing impact, bring it to the interface: get useful knowledge from all those intelligent people on the Internet give the benefit of this knowledge to everyone, says Tom Gruber.” (Dan Farber – CNET)

“When you hear the term voice user interface (VUI), what comes to mind? Most likely, memories of an interactive voice response system (IVR) for customer service arise. IVRs are certainly not going away. For many companies, they remain the foremost contact point with customers. But voice user interfaces are more than just IVRs. In fact, VUIs have tremendous potential for enhancing the experience of any mobile phone user. As the use of mobile devices and applications proliferates internationally, understanding how to integrate, or mash up, graphic user interfaces (GUI) and VUIs is becoming critically important.” (Darnell Clayton and Colleen Jones – UXmatters)

“Informal histories of HCI commonly document two major intellectual waves that have formed the field: the first orienting from engineering/human factors with its focus on optimizing man-machine fit, and the second stemming from cognitive science, with an increased emphasis on theory and on what is happening not only in the computer but, simultaneously, in the human mind. In this paper, we document underlying forces that constitute a third wave in HCI and suggest systemic consequences for the CHI community. We provisionally name this the ‘phenomenological matrix’. In the course of creating technologies such as ubiquitous computing, visualization, affective and educational technology, a variety of approaches are addressing issues that are bad fits to prior paradigms, ranging from embodiment to situated meaning to values and social issues. We demonstrate the underlying unity of these approaches, and document how they suggest the centrality of currently marginal criteria for design, evaluation, appreciation, and developmental methodology in CHI work.” (Steve Harrison et al. 2007)

“This section describes the motivations, assumptions, and directions behind Chromium’s user interface design. Its goal is to explain the current design in a way that further work can be developed in-style, or so that our assumptions can be challenged, changed, and improved.” (CDD)