Scott Thomas was lead designer in Obama’s 2008 successful presidential campaign. It was the first time that branding, design and social media played a pivotal role in the campaign, and here he discusses how his team managed the epic task of rolling out designs for logos, print graphics, email templates, the website interface… the list goes on. As he describes it, it was “like building an aeroplane in flight.”

Lessons learned: keep things simple, surround yourself with a diverse team of collaborators with whom you can develop unique ideas and solutions to problems, use real-time analytics to make incremental design improvements, and treat the entire project as an evolution: add features and processes over time, learning from past mistakes and feedback along the way.

Scott Thomas: Designing the Obama Campaign from 99% on Vimeo.

• Successful strategies for selling ad space on low traffic websites — Smashing Magazine
• Onboarding: designing welcoming first experiences — UX Mag
• Interview with the authors of Remote Research — UX Booth
• Tableau Public: data visualisation service — via Konigi
• Unique blog posts and wordpress tips — Web Designer Wall
• 10 keys to effective non-profit organisation websites — Vandelay Design
• 15 highly-useful resources for cross browser testing — designm.ag
• 35 useful jQuerylugins for slideshows, graphs and text effects — Noupe

 
Bing Maps raise the bar in online mapping technology

• Recommended design reading — Jason Santa Maria
• iPad user experience guidelines as everyday design tips — Kitsune Noir
• Showcase of well-designed Mac application websites — Six Revisions
• 40 beautiful corporate websites — Vandelay Design Blog
• Flashpoint as Jobs takes aim at Adobe — Sydney Morning Herald
• What to expect in 2010: UX/UI design simplicity — Web Designer Wall
• Improve conversions by connecting with your audience — The UX Booth
• Stunning infographics and data visualisation — Noupe
• The right way to wireframe — Konigi
• Colour theory for designers – part 2 — Smashing Magazine
• Everything you need to know about image compression — Noupe
• 47 amazing CSS3 animation demos — Web Designer Wall

 
This is not a sci-fi movie! This is Pranav Mistry’s ‘SixthSense technology’. Prepare to be astounded!

via TED.

• Design trend predictions in 2010 — Web Designer Wall
• Social media’s true impact on Haiti, China, and the world — Mashable
• Fantastic information architecture resources — Noupe
• The importance of web interactivity: tips and examples — Hongkiat
• How your phone can keep tabs on friends — Sydney Morning Herald
• A brief history of eye tracking — The UX Booth
• Design and build an email newsletter without losing your mind — Smashing Magazine

 
‘BIRD’ by Andrew Zuckerman

BIRD Ferruginous Hawk from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

BIRD film from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

Anyone who’s seen Andrew Zuckerman’s incredible wildlife photography will appreciate this stunning video created to accompany his book called BIRD.

Via Kitsune Noir.

• Principals of effective e-commerce search — Smashing Magazine
• Writing user-friendly content — The UX Booth
• 25 awesome gift ideas for designers and developers — Six Revisions
• A blob walks out of a clock tower in Brisbane — Brand New
• Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design — Vitsoe
• Usability testing toolkit: resources, articles and techniques — Noupe
• How the iPhone Could Reboot Education — Wired

 
Impressive: could you play Yann Tiersen on 6 iPhones?

• Site search trends for e-commerce websites — Vandelay Design
• Negative space in logo design — Logo Design Love
• Ten commandments of social media — Noupe
• Twitter rated 2009 word of the year — Sydney Morning Herald
• Complete beginners guide to interaction design — The UX Booth
• You can’t innovate like Apple – Pragmatic Marketing
• 3 Steps for Effectively Using Social Media for PR – Top Rank Blog
• 7 Steps To A Google Top Ten Rank – SEO Design blog
• 5 Impressive Real-Life Google Wave Use Cases – Mashable
• 7 Simple Truths of Social Media Marketing – Duct Tape Marketing

 
You may now update your Facebook statuses…

• Top 10 Internet moments of the decade — Sydney Morning Herald
• The Googlephone: Google gears up for attack on mobile-phone market — The Times

Showcase of beautiful typography in web design — Noupe

• User reviews: Increased sales, traffic and transparency — The UX Booth
• How to evaluate what CMS to use — Six Revisions

 
Be sure to check out National Geographic’s International Photography Contest for 2009:

A big congratulations must go out to three of our past (and amazingly talented!) QUT interns, who have just spent the last six months putting an enormous amount of effort into organising their end of year graduate exhibition.

Well done to Jess Golding for project managing, and to Jacque Prior and Georgie Thompson for their graphic design prowess.

We wish you all the best and look forward to watching you take the design world by storm!

• App to find nearest toilet? Data flood unleashed — Sydney Morning Herald
• The Font Kingdom: Search, explore, create and download fonts for free — Tech Crunch
• Getting started with content management systems — Smashing Magazine
• The process toolbox: Prototyping — Erskine Labs
• 5 simple but useful CSS properties — Web Designer Wall
• Long tail user experience: how to cultivate (or dissolve) a community — UX Booth
• Top 20 essential Firefox add-ons for web designers — Six Revisions

 
For that special geek in your life… FashionablyGeek.com should have some stocking fillers that will take their fancy this Christmas!

Designing websites isn’t just about creating something pretty in Photoshop. A user visits a website with a set of specific objectives in mind. So a lot of thought has to go into the user interface (UI) in order to help them achieve those objectives as easily and painlessly as possible.

We’ve already blogged about the power of “invisible design”, and then I came across a great blog post on the principles of UI design. It really breaks down the thinking that goes into designing and building a website. A summary is below, or you can read the entire article at Carsonified.com.

1. Know your user
If you understand your audience’s behaviours, goals, skills and experience you’ll be better equipped to design an interface that they’ll find easy to navigate and use.

2. Pay attention to patterns
Many users are familiar with certain interfaces, such as those on common computer applications. By mimicking familiar patterns, the user won’t need to learn to perform tasks on your site.

3. Stay consistent
It is important that users feel they have an understanding of how things will work. Therefore consistency needs to be maintained across language, layout and design.

4. Use a visual hierarchy
It is the designer’s job to simplify and arrange content logically. Use placement, size and colour to indicate what is most important.

5. Provide feedback
Visual cues and simple messages are very important. It should always be easy for the user to tell if they are using the website correctly.

6. Be forgiving
If somebody makes a mistake whilst using your website, it should be easy for them to correct it without having to start all over again. Therefore it’s important to design ways for users to undo their actions. Where appropriate, use messages to explain what went wrong so users don’t keep repeating the same mistakes.

7. Empower your user
Provide shortcuts for regular users so they don’t have to go through long processes when they already know what they want to achieve.

8. Speak their language
Keep copywriting conversational, not sensational. Use minimal labels and simple messaging so the users hear themselves instead of you.

9. Keep it simple
Remember it’s often harder to design simple interfaces than complex ones. Don’t try to be fancy, strive for simplicity. Always ask the question, “does the user really need this?”

10. Keep moving forward
Keep your user interface out of the way and when you make mistakes, keep going!

If you’re interested in understanding more about user experience and interaction design, here are some great resources:

• Elavision Insights – the blog of our very own interaction design guru, Joel Flom
• The UX Booth – User Experience Blog
• Functioning Form – Interface Design Blog
• Adaptive Path – the blog from a leading interaction design agency of the same name

Web Design Brisbane: Learn more about effective user interface design – call Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.