December 30, 2003
tabs at work
from orbitz
pity the poor tab. Once a carefree denizen of the file cabinet, then thrust into service in software, he has become the hardest working widget on the web, asked to sort data into unique areas, represent navigation options, show views of data and now on orbitz, even sort. Poor fellow, can't he get a vacation!
mail to
from abc news
I'm getting a lot of these. Here we see the double enevelope again. I think icons in "negative" lose a lot of their readability, especially the flying one. The printer is about par in mysteriousness with other printer icons... that nut has definately not been cracked.
waiting...waiting....waiting...
from orbitz
like expedia, orbitz uses a animated image that does not provide measured feedback of how far along the process is (in this case, searching for flights matching the input criteria) but rather provides a sense of something happening.
I believe Orbitz's is far less sucessful in this goal-- it's unclear what the animation is about, then text is overshadowed by the page's visual activity (blue on blue?!? people, blue on blue! it's the most important message!) and feels a bit like a vegas sideshow.
on-state
from Orbitz
I noticed this navigation and was attracted to its representation of state-- the exploded tab is really noticable, clear and different from the norm. I think it's a nifty little success.
calender tool
from Orbitz
compared to expedia's, it is (possibly) more stylish and (definately) more musterious. I cropped cotext around it, so it'd be clear it was a calendar--- but doesn't it look more like a caculator, or maybe a 50's drink coaster? But context makes the icon, and it's location makes up for a host of design flaws.
December 28, 2003
login, logout
from GROW
Two items of interest-- one is the iconography for log-in, log-out which I find curious, but potentially effective; an open door for log in, a closed for log out makes a certain amount of sense.
The second is the hodge-podge nature of the site tools- log-in, log-out and register go together, arguably site map and help, but experts? This is a non-content collection of navigation devices, and the little categorizer within me balks at mismatches.
December 20, 2003
zooming
from Red Envelope
+ and - are the usual icons for zoom in and out, though we usually see them in a magnifying glass, as seen here from the Photoshop program. The "reset" is an oft forgetten and very useful control, allowing for the viewer to get back to zero, after much fussing. It's less important to an experienced navigator (like a photoshop user, perhaps), but for a shopper who could get lost in fine details, it is a nice safty net.
These controls were found in a an extremely slick feature on Red Envelope -- you not only can look at a larger image as you can on most well-designed shopping sites, but you can continue to zoom and then slide the object around within the zoomwindow around to look at areas of the image... unfortunately they haven't found a way to change the cursor from pointing finger to grabbing hand (the typical icon established by adobe for moving around an image, as seen below from photoshop again).
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| Photoshop's hand affords grabbing and sliding the image | Red Envelope's doesn't change, and looks like it affords clicking rather than sliding. |
December 19, 2003
facetnav
from Red Enevelope
Like many shopping sites, red envelope offers navigation in a faceted classification scheme. I particually enjoy the quirky collection of personalities showcased beneath lifestyle. It helps give redenvelope a characteristic voice, and helps shape their brand, as well as giving gift hunters something more rich to work with than birthday, for her.
BTW, great present site-- i think it's rescued my relationship with my grandparents...
December 18, 2003
email what?
found on UE comics
This reveals an interesting design problem: how to differentiate between receive by email and email this to a friend.
December 17, 2003
cart-ography
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Target goes for the shopping bag, Amazon for the shopping cart.
Interestingly enough, Starbucks, Peets , The Gap and RedEnvelope all eschew an icon for their cart/bags. Is the omnipresent shopping cart (and its occasional alternative, the bag) coming to an end?
The choice of characteristic elements of cart-ness is interesting. For reference, check out an actual shopping cart
cooltools
found on MarketingProfs
cool, visible and intuitable. (thought the print icon is the icon usually used for "new" or "edit")
December 16, 2003
email this
found on yahoo movies, and pretty straightforward it is. A thought: is site iconography the right place to express brand?
configure
found on the spiderman 2 trailer
found on movable type interface
MT has had this icon for awhile. I don't know if it is orginal or not, but I'm willing to bet MT has made is obquious enough a designer though they could slap it up on the trailer without a label. I think they were wrong (needs label), but it raises an interesting question about how the blog tools-- widely used by site creators of all types-- will affect our visual language.
email this
found on a strange yahoo-entertainment tonight hybred site
looks like a cute illustration rather hastily crushed. otherwise a fine variation on the classic.
and what about you?
One more to round it out. Yahoo's is the most complex, but it is also designed to support meetings rather than parties or networking events.
choose a OS
found on larabie fonts
The download command is implicit in the choice of OS button on this simple font site.
timelines
from the met's Timeline of Art History
Here is a time when time is the right metaphor for navigation, i suspect. Art changes radically over periods, and is often defined by a century. Check it out....
navigate art
from the met's timeline of art
Maybe I'm just a sucker for the good looking, but this navigation is nice. Simple, the icons are clear and helpful (though couldn't stand alone without the text) and it suits an elegant site.
December 15, 2003
permalink
Since I'm on blog conventions:
found on Dollar Short
found on kottke
The permanlink convention has not yet stablized-- it's typically the date, sometimes the title, sometimes a hashmark and sometimes these cute little square icons. Be interesting to see what wins.
useless?
Found on blogs everywhere, this particular one on http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/lydon/2003/11/24#a433
I'm not sure why calendar navigation come standard in the MT template, but categorization navigation doesn't. Is a calendar really the best way to move through entries? Topics for sites like this one seems more useful, while simple big next buttons seem good for most diary sites. Except for an advent calendar, what power does a given day provide? If there is a special day, like a birthday or Sept 11th or what have you, a special link can be privided... but the calendar has no meaning, bad affordances (fitt's law anyone?) but looks nifty I suppose.
footnotes
Found on forester
This icon launches a small pop-up.
Why? What's wrong with a simple footnote with an anchor? I find it very disruptive as I'm trying to read.
December 13, 2003
Upload status
found on cafepress
Displayed in its own window, which can be a bit bewildering if you are a multi-window browser like I am. However, the design is fine-- unimportant information in a small font, big green bar gives you an estimate of how far you are.
articles on CNN
found on cnn. These article tools are all a bit abstract, icon-wise, though the label disambiguates them neatly.
However, I know what "email", "save" and "send" means--- but what about more popular? "Rate", I'd understand but it feels like a bit of navigation was tossed in to make this layout evenly.
It's like the sesame street song-- one of these things is not like the other...
scoped search
found on cnn.
interesting presentation of scoped search. probably more effective than a dropdown, which hides options. but why default to the web? On a non-search engine site, the expectations is one is searching the site.
name entry
Found on yahoo.fr, in mail set up.
Note that unlike USA sites where first name is usually the first field, here we see last name first, first name second.
localization
Found on yahoo.fr, in mail set up.
French data entry field in the French order: day, month, year.
status bar
Found on Ofoto
Simple clear feedback tool. while bar level may not be deeply meaningful, it gives a happy sense of progress.
date entry
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This date entry format avoids typos by using dropdowns, but limits the number of dates one can choose. Also, the dropdown quickly becomes unweildy.... even though there are only twelve months, thirty one days is a bit much, and how many years are possible? Considering photography was invented in 1816, 187.
Ofoto avoids this by only going back to 1991. Considering scanners allow me to put my great-grandmother's silver plate photos online, I'm not sure that was a good assumption. I find it odd you can make an album set in a future before you've taken your photos. I can make an album set in 2013 right now, but can't make one before 1991.
December 12, 2003
formatting on blogger
Very classic html formatting tools from blogger-- does Microsoft copyright these? One great advantage for blogger is all the users who know Windows can understand these pretty quickly.
upload file
From blogger
Simple upload button-- by why does it use the attatchment iconography? Is this right?
merchant ratings
from yahoo shopping
These stars are cute and puffy, but how are they distinguished/related to product ratings?
December 05, 2003
date entry
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found on yahoo address book
Simple and clear-- the affordances are good-- the year field is four characters, the day is two. Helpful text underneath. One question... month dropdown has a choice that is a dash... would it have been better simply to have January showing? Also, the tip says mm, but the dropdown is in "month" full word format... tiny thing, but not quite right.
sorting search results
A simple tool for sorting search results. While less visible, the dropdown does provide more optiosn for sorting. Found on yahoo shopping
font controls
found on milk your dot com, this is simple and easy to understand, assuming you know what a font is.