New projects are ahead, new connections are in the future and more time to delve further into the inner workings of the web in whole are things I look forward with the year to come.

Wishing everyone a very happy new year, and a great successful 2012!

6,500+ downloads of MineClock! I can't believe it! Thank you to all who have downloaded it! More updates are definitely planned!

Like most things with interface design and user experience it’s solely based on the brand, but more closely related to what product the design is for. From there (and influenced from business directives) it’s easy to calculate what kind of experience the end user should have.

I will preface this by saying I’m an absolute believer in correct usage of minimalism, therefore my ideas usually don’t carry too much ‘eye candy’ to distract the user. Eye candy is good, but with exercise and trial and error it’s easy to see the difference between too much, and too little.

Example 1

A company that’s obviously taken minimal UI design to it’s heart and is most widely known for it is Apple. A company which lives and breathes the idea of “It just works” and “Extremely simple to use and understand”. From their products to their operating systems they’ve spearheaded the concept of minimal design and implementation from their iPhones and iPads to their OSX operating system. My first thoughts before getting “in” with Apple products were “It may be too basic for my needs” and “Making things simpler may make my more complicated tasks harder to do”. That last thought may seem a little confusing, but when you’re using programs to do certain things with the general idea of doing basic tasks like advertised on Apple’s website, my idea of doing web development seemed to be “dumbed down” if you will. Boy, was I wrong.

With Apple’s OSX environment as an example, (trying not to sound too much of a fan boy here) applications like Panic’s Coda not only makes my development easier, it just makes it the entire process make more sense. What do I mean by that? To answer that without going too in depth with detail you’ll have to visit their site and checkout that application. Basic things like their “site manager” and “code coloring schemes and styling” felt like opening Christmas presents on Christmas day to me. From a person who got quite comfortable with Notepad++ (which I do still like on windows environments) the idea of having a beautiful program to work with that didn’t look like “another typical windows program” made my work more enjoyable. Is that too sappy? I’ll try not to be.

This of course is just one example of the many other applications I can speak highly of on OSX verses their Windows equivalents, but it’s used just to give you an example to what I mean by their design. This wasn’t meant to gloat about Apple software. The UI and the user experience I had with Panic’s software was (lack of a better word) different. The ideas behind each main section like “Sites”, “CSS” and “Terminal” were clearly thought out not because they’re “typically used by developers” but because Panic obviously had huge feed back on what was needed in a code editor. Time and time again I see editors and environments so jammed packed with ‘features’ with little to no explanation for each. There’s no guidance to the user other than running around in the software’s “help” section searching aimlessly.

Minimalist, look at their “sites” section screen shot here. This ties into what I said earlier about “feeling dumbed down”. You’ll see there that there’s white space, breathing room and not feeling claustrophobic while trying to do work. If you hover the site’s name you’ll then have an ‘information’ button to click on which will give you a pop up full of site FTP / SSH details to edit. Everything feels natural.

Example 2

Now to skew away from operating systems and programs let’s start getting into the web based user interface. I labeled the first example as “Example 1″ because to me, that’s where computer based user interface begins. The user gets acquainted with their operating system and as such, should expect a similar experience on an app, or web site.

http://www.krop.com/

Simple, clean and powerful. The controls (input fields) and navigation are not only boldly displayed with being larger, and white on a black heading, but they’re also not cluttered with any other controls for the user. Navigating and using this site couldn’t be simpler because, they make it simple to use. I’m not saying go out and just slap input fields on a page and leave it at that, but their design on the fields themselves make them stand out. Red text within the input field, the fact that results automatically appear without having to hit ‘enter’ as a user typically would on any other site (like mine) makes it easy to understand, use, and get the results the end user needs as fast as possible.

Example 3

http://www.singlehop.com/

I’m not using them as an example because I’ve chosen them for my dedicated servers, absolutely not. I’ve used them as an example because I’ve found them to be the best hosting service represented on the web. From their slider on their homepage over-viewing current offers and deals to their beautiful navigation and even server order customization screen, it doesn’t get simpler than that. There aren’t any ads on their pages, and if you dive into their site the only side bar content you’ll see is what’s specific for whatever page you’re on. My blog as an example I decided to show you my twitter posts, my recent postings, my tags to navigate throughout my site. But their website running their business, they’ve clearly taken in account something on the lines of “Let’s show our potential customers ONLY what they want to see, and give it to them as clear and easy as possible”.

If you dive deeper into their site you’ll also see they’ve released applications to manage your servers. For anyone who has web hosting you’ve obviously have accustomed to the typical “web portal” to manage your server. With SingleHop they have native applications which you can download and install, breaking you away from the typical browser experience. Thus, making the entire user experience extremely simple and displayed extremely eloquently including their great use of typography.

Example 4

http://forrst.com/

This is a site which uses similar principles to that of krop.com in the sense of using large input fields, white space and typography. The ability to navigate and look through their site in their “Explore Forrst” section is in my mind, executed perfectly. They’ve even put some of their Frequently Asked Questions directly on their homepage, without making the user search for the typical ‘FAQs’ link on web page header or footer. Their choice of colors obviously matches their brand name (green and “Forrst” sounding like Forest obviously) but you’ll also notice they didn’t use much beyond that. Anything too “colorful” is distracting and can easily and quite quickly lead the user to be overwhelmed. Remember in my preface I indicated “eye candy sometimes being too much or too little”? That would clearly classify as too much.

Example 5

http://jilion.com/

This is a specifically good example to me with excellent use of typography. Again, they have white space, but you’ll also may or may not notice that reading through their site, the amount of information they’re displaying isn’t too overwhelming. Whether it be their colors or shades of choice, or their line spacing between their information, ultimately they’ve definitely taken into account of displaying extremely informative information about them without adding too much “fluff” (as I like to call it). Many times I’ll see websites with tons of information on them, only to read through it all and say “Wow, I read through that and I understand they do web development”. It’s not that I have a difficulty to digest information, but that I commonly see businesses just putting a bunch of “fluff” to fill space or to make them seem like they know what they’re talking about. You’ll also notice they have no navigation minus a “blog” link on their home page. That’s because they were able to tell you everything about them on one page, with out the need for other pages. Of course that doesn’t make sense for everyone, but that clearly follows their brand and the kind of work they do.

Again, my site as an example, in my “About” section I mention my love for macaroni and cheese. I do, truthfully love macaroni and cheese. Why did I put that there? Because I believe it shows a little bit of my humor. It tells you my website is here to serve a purpose to show people what I love to do, but to also let you know I’m human. I have humor, I have a personality, my website is not just typical regurgitated text.

For now, back to coding. I hope you’ve enjoyed the read.

-Brian