Tony Stephens / Simian Design

I’m working on a project that requires some vertical text.  But I was unsure as to the “correct” way for the vertical text to be set, 90 degrees clockwise or counter-clockwise.  Luckily, I didn’t have to do a lot of research, as it’s been done for me. Robust Vertical Text Layout outlines the basic rules for vertical text for me.

In a purely physical layout scheme, each of these text layout properties would be given as an absolute: The inline progression of this run of English is top to bottom, its glyph orientation is 90 degrees clockwise, its block progression is from right to left.

But absolutes don’t hold much water.

For scripts in a non-native orientation, the natural inline text flow depends on the direction of line stacking: the text is most comfortably laid out as if the whole text block were merely rotated from the horizontal. For example, English text in vertical lines that stack from left to right will face with the glyphs’ tops towards the left and the text direction running from bottom to top. The same text, by the same logic, would in a right-to-left line stacking context face right and flow within each line from top to bottom.

Basically it boils down to this from what I can determine: Have the bottom of the text point in the direction of the block progression.

“This 12-month Carbon Trust-funded project seeks to produce best practice guidance and training material for manufacturers of controls. The aim is to improve the design and usability of controls, particularly controls provided for occupants of buildings. Building services designers and architects will also be targeted to improve the specifications for controls systems in ways that highlight usability as well as functionality. “

This is a quick overview of their upcoming survey and report on Improving the usability of building controls, and it’s intriguing.  A true inside-out view of usability, it focuses on user-design from the end-user view.

Wow. I really think [Jakob][1] has been on a tear recently. I mean, I really think a couple of his last articles (such as his [Forms vs Applications][2]) make a great deal of sense.

His latest laments the [death of WYSIWYG interfaces][3]. The reasoning behind this death call is [Microsoft Office 12][4]. His reasons seem pretty solid. I’ve seen the interface of the new Office, but didn’t give it a lot of thought. But apparantly it is going to cause a shift in thinking behind interfaces.

> If the new interaction style works as well as early predictions indicate, users will quickly expect many other user experiences to provide the power of a results-oriented design. People don’t like messing with commands and preference settings on the Web, which is why most customization features fail. It’ll therefore be interesting to see how these new ideas translate into environments far beyond Office-like productivity applications.

I’ll be very interested to see how this plays out. Some great ideas in this article as well on __results-oriented interfaces__. Well worth the read.

[1]: http://www.useit.com/
[2]: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/forms.html
[3]: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/wysiwyg.html
[4]: http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/uioverview.mspx

This article, on the [Gestalt principle of form perception][1], is fantastic. [Mads Soegaard] takes a close look at the “gestalt laws of perceptual organization”, and even uses them in this article nicely. (In particular he uses the Law of Promiximity very well.)

Basically what this article is about is how people parse information. Jeff Veen touches on this with his ['blink' phenomenon][3]. It all revolves around how people perceives parts of an object and form whole objects, or out ability to parse meaning out of the ‘vapor of nuance’.

The laws are thus: The Law of Proximity, The Law of Similarity, The Law of Prägnanz (figure-ground), The Law of Symmetry and The Law of Closure. I find the Law of Proximity, Similarity the ones most applicable to online design. But they all have their uses, and are really good tools to have in your toolkit.

I really dig this article, and I really encourage you to go and read it. Especially if you design anything for online consumption.

[1]: http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/gestalt_principles_of_form_perception.html
[2]: http://www.interaction-design.org/references/authors/mads_soegaard.html
[3]: http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000707.html

[YourTotalSite.com][1] is a good resource. Good site, thorough information and nice collection of links and articles. Using the site is pleasant, the design is clean and open, and is worth bookmarking.

[1]: http://www.yourtotalsite.com/

Jeff Veen notices a [very nice feature on Threadless][vURL1] regarding shipping. He also states why it’s so very effective, and I agree with him completely. It is sublte, and makes the shirt itself the most important item. Which it should be.

I also believe it’s a very good example of the [Cluetrain axiom][cURL1] “These markets are conversations”.

This is a very nice, subtle piece of application/usability design. I don’t know how it would transfer to other markets, but it works so very well here.

[vURL1]: http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000672.html
[cURL1]: http://www.cluetrain.com/

Now this is smart. User-friendly smart. Just wicked smart. David Benton uses the principles of Fitts’ Law to [increase the clickability of links][url1]. It’s such a simple and elegant solution it’s amazing no one thought of this before.

Go read the article, but the basis is that by increasing the target area of a link, you’re increasing the user’s ability to click on it. The way Fitts’ comes into this is that you’re decreasing the distance between the mouse and the link, and providing a greater stopping area.

Nice, very very nice.

Now [Fitts' Law][url2] is a model of human behavior developed in 1954. The model is based on _time_ and _distance_. It enables the prediction of human movement and human motion based on __rapid, aimed movement__, not drawing or writing.

Now how in the hell does this [apply to the web][url3]? Easy. We know that the user uses the mouse. By making it easier for the user to complete a task with his mouse (clicking a link) we can increase task completion rates, which raises usability and user satisfaction, which raises just everything.

Did you know that there is a [mathmatical formula][url3] for Fitts’ Law? I didn’t. But it’s _MT = a + b log2(2A/W)_. I’m not going to bother to explain that, but the whole point of this post is the _W_ which stands for width of target. Which is what we are increasing. Which is a good thing.

[url1]: http://www.dbenton.com/go/chronicles/2004/08/22/fitts-law-and-text-links/ “Fitts Law and Text Links”
[url2]: http://www.asktog.com/columns/022DesignedToGiveFitts.html “The Fitts Law Quiz by Tog”
[url3]: http://www.asktog.com/basics/firstPrinciples.html “First Principles of Interaction Design”
[url3]: http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~cs5724/g1/ “Fitts’ Law in an academic light”