James Young Visual Design @jydesign

Twitter Header Photo PSD Template

jydesign — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 15:27:01 +0000

Today, Twitter introduced a new header photo option for user profiles. Twitter states that the image requirements are a “Minimum dimensions of 1252×626, Maximum file size of 5MB”. However, there are other things to take into consideration, such as the area of the image that the avatar icon will completely obscure, your Display Name and @username as well as margins. In addition, it’s worth noting that Twitter overlays a gradient that darkens the lower two thirds of your image. To make it easier for folks to crop and position their new header image, I worked up a simple layered Photoshop (PSD) template. Download the Twitter header photo template in .PSD format…

UPDATE: I’ve improved the template a bit, adding a sample background pattern along with Layer Comps, and a Note within the PSD that offers suggested use.

UPDATE 2: If you have any issues downloading the .PSD file, please Download the .zip archived version.

How to Change Your Twitter Header Image – Mashable.com
8 Ways To Make The Most Out Of Twitter’s New Header Image – makeuseof.com
Sample pattern – “Tex2res4″ made by Janos Koos, thanks to subtlepatterns.com

Mobile Data & Storage Growing Pains May Hinder Expansion

jydesign — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 15:54:45 +0000

Mobile smartphones and tablets have been on a meteoric rise since the iPhone initially shipped in 2007. However, there are conflicting trends that could stagnate growth in the U.S., if they are not adequately addressed in a user-centered way.

Carriers & Manufacturers Are Out of Sync Regarding Data Plans

‘I don’t give a f*&% how thin your phone is, I want unlimited data…’

“Gambling genie” by Lisa Brewster

When Horace Dediu kicked off mobilism 2012, he presented an impressive animated chart that illustrated the ascension of the iPhone relative to its competitors. People generally attribute this rapid success to the genius of the iPhone hardware feature set. However, one of the main “features” that secured its success, in my opinion, was that it originally shipped with a single unlimited data plan via AT&T. People were fed up with being nickled and dimed with fees for internet access, email, downloading music, transferring photos, backing up contacts etc. The content-liberated iPhone hardware, plus the simple unlimited data plan, sealed the deal for many and justified the relatively high cost.

Ever since the iPhone took off and tablets got into the game, AT&T (and eventually the other major carriers) have been trying to stuff that unlimited-data-Genie back in the bottle. With tiered data plans, shared data buckets, throttling and other tactics, the redefined “unlimited” is a shadow of it’s brash 2007 incarnation. I could be argued that the iPhone was a better value in its first year than it is today.

That’s a huge problem, because unlimited data was the killer app! Ironically, the early iPhones didn’t have the native apps and system features that make it the bandwidth glutton it is today. With the forthcoming release of iOS 6, Apple has essentially created a mobile OS that craves constant access to a data plan (or Wifi). Android, Windows Mobile, and the rest of the gang have developed similar appetites.

To consumers, it feels as though U.S. carriers want to revert back to nickel and diming, while the mobile device manufacturers aim to sell gadgets that are designed for a yet-to-exist utopia of ubiquitous, fast, cheap, and unlimited data access. These two divergent motivations are set to collide with unfortunate results for U.S. mobile market. If carriers and manufacturers don’t start working in concert, I think that it will eventually stall consumer interest and constrain innovation. I think it’s up to hardware manufacturers to stop simply refining their hardware and OSes, and collaborate with carriers to improve the hardware-plus-service combination. It’s the data plan stupid, figure out how to make it happen!

The spec might be dead, but onboard storage still matters

Keeping the base model storage of “The New iPad” at 16GB was an insult #IMO. The retina-fication of computing devices is requiring native apps and websites to more than double the file size of their image assets. Despite this newly mandated bloat, Apple didn’t see fit to at least double its onboard storage lineup? Really? The same could be said for the iPhone as well.

Cloud storage is supposed to offset this ‘challenge’, but it simply doesn’t – yet. Considering the data plan issues mentioned above, the full promise of mobile cloud storage is still on the horizon. In addition, native apps must be installed on the device (not the cloud) and they are ballooning in file size with every update. Therefore, it will still be some time before onboard storage is NOT a major consideration in usability. The next crop of smartphones and tablets must ship with a major storage bump to their base models, or the negative impact on users is going to shift from insulting to untenable.

Greater Harmony between Product & Service will mark the next chapter in mobile

The next major leap forward in mobile will be a product that finally brings the Carrier service portion in line with overall UX of the device. Whether this is done via better collaboration between multiple players, or a device manufacturer making a bold move into directly providing call/text/data plans, I’m not sure. It’s time to innovate, not monetize via artificially restrictive products and services. The growth of the mobile platform in the U.S. will stagnate if all involved keep trying to make their last desperate money grabs from consumers.

AT&T Unveils Shared Wireless-Data Plans – WSJ.com
Apple’s FaceTime can eat up wireless data limits - marketwatch.com
5 things cell phone carriers should offer (but don’t) - appolicious.com
Top three problems the mobile industry needs to solve - digitaltrends.com
Net Neutrality and the Naked Internet - ecommercetimes.com

HCI Design: The Growing Tension Between Consuming vs. Creating

jydesign — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 14:24:54 +0000

I’ve been meaning to mention this topic for a while now. Some recent headlines* have been just the kickstart I needed. The growing popularity of mobile devices has signaled a major change in the way many people interact with their computing devices. This can be seen in the trajectory that Apple has taken with iOS as it has scaled up from iPhone to iPad, as well as the other major OSes available to consumers.

In turn, this new breed of Mobile OSes – optimized for touch input on small portable devices – are influencing the user interfaces of more traditional Desktop and Portable computers. The most obvious examples of this are recent moves by both Apple and Microsoft to introduce aspects of iOS or Window Mobile into both OS X and Windows 8 respectively. While the two companies take very different approaches in how they hybridize the UX among their different operating systems, there’s one clear pattern that seems to be emerging.

Consume vs. Create

There’s a growing distinction between modes of use on computing devices. This might be best simplified as Consume vs. Create modes. For example, at the moment you can’t ‘really’ build and deploy an iOS native app on a device running iOS. That task requires a computer running OS X.

The forthcoming release of Microsoft Surface aims to address this tension in a different way. However, The Surface Pro will likely continue to exacerbate the conflict between these modes as well. It may take a while for device manufacturers to fine tune their product lines to best address the needs and expectations for mobile and traditional computing devices among consumers and businesses. I think that a hybrid approach is appropriate, but the feature set must be balanced to suit each device category.

*Related Articles

Windows 8 Pro on Microsoft’s Surface: A usability nightmare - zdnet.com
Why the GUI Will Never Kill the Sacred Command Line - wired.com
What The New Microsoft Office Gets Wrong - fastcodesign.com

The Evolving User Experience of Social Sharing

jydesign — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:55:53 +0000

Share buttons may irritate us at the moment, but they’ll continue to mature in the way they are implemented and they’ll eventually become obsolete due to device-level capabilities.

Oliver Reichenstein of Information Architects recently wrote a thoughtful and provocative article titled “Sweep the Sleaze”. Despite the broad strokes and firm tone of his piece, I’m very pleased to see a well thought out challenge to the often mindless and trend-rabid implementation of social sharing buttons. I think it’s an important addition to the discussion around best practices for social media. His general thesis brings the dialogue back to where it should have been all along – How can we tactfully implement sharing as part of a user-centered design process?

As Reichenstein indicated, each social service button has its own unique UX and flow. They also have their own set of pros and cons as they relate to improving the engagement of a target audience. In addition, they also share some general attributes that can either work for or against you, in terms of interaction and site performance. For example, the article highlights the general implications when it comes to displaying the number of times something was shared. You generally either look like a loser with a low count, or an over-shared meme, except for that fleeting period of time when the count is neither too low or too high.

In order to do something that’s better and more intelligent, content designers have to stop thinking in terms of a “bank of buttons” model. They must start exploring the features and flow of each individual sharing button as it relates to the interaction narratives they desire for their users.

There’s a great quote from Smashing Magazine in Reichenstein’s article. It points out a fatal flaw in Facebook’s “Like” button UX, that caused them to pull it from their site. However, if you ran a similar user study examining a properly implemented Twitter button (which pops a window with editable pre-populated text including the article title, a link and the @username), I’m willing to barter that many users do appreciate the lack of ‘friction’ in comparison to a copy-paste model of tweeting an article. In addition, when such an implementation automatically assists a user in correctly identifying the twitter handle of the author, it helps to preserve the provenance of the content as it circulates.

So does this mean that sites do want a Twitter button, but don’t want a Facebook “Like” button? No, there’s no magic formula. You have to do the hard work of mapping out how each bit of functionality fits into your particular site or service. I think that’s ultimately the point Reichenstein makes. Don’t implement social sharing as a knee-jerk reaction to a trend, design it into your web/application flow the same way you should be adding any other feature.

Mobile OS and UI-Level integration of sharing tools may eventually render this all a non-issue. Content providers have been using share buttons as a stop-gap measure to compensate for difficulties related to expanding the reach of their content. Our devices, operating systems and browser UIs are improving at a rapid clip. Flipboard is just one example of an innovative app that eliminates the need for in-content sharing buttons. I think we can look forward to a day when these buttons will no longer be cluttering the display of our content and applications – not because people don’t want quick & easy ways to share content, but because the interface to such a capability will become ubiquitous and transparent.

Google+ Profile Cover Photo PSD Template

jydesign — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:50:17 +0000

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, Google+ has updated many aspects of its interface. One notable change is a full-width cover photo image option for Profile pages. The size of this image is 940 x 180 px. However, there are other things to take into consideration, such as cropping that occurs to the Left and Right margins of this canvas size, not to mention the Profile photo that obscures the right-hand side. Therefore, I worked up a simple Photoshop (PSD) template to make it easier to account for these aspects of the layout. Download the Google+ cover photo template in .PSD & .PNG format…

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

The Coalitions Project, Identity Design

jydesign — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 19:22:41 +0000

Client: The Coalitions Project | Role: Identity Design

I’m helping The Coalitions Project with various design efforts including their logo and overall web app UI design. The project is in early stages, for more info keep an eye on http://www.coalitions.us.org

Cloudera Manager

jydesign — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 10:44:32 +0000

Client: Cloudera | Agencies: Theresa Neil Interface Design (TNiD), projekt202 | Roles: Visual Design & UX contributor

I contributed to the UX and Visual Design for the newly released Cloudera Manager, the industry’s first end-to-end management application for Apache Hadoop. Read more on Theresa Neil’s Blog or see the product announcement on TechCrunch…

New Book by Theresa Neil

jydesign — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:47:09 +0000

My colleague Theresa Neil is an amazingly talented UX designer. I have the good fortune of working as part of her team on mobile & web app projects. She’s about to release her second book “Mobile Design Pattern Gallery” on O’Reilly Media. Her book website was launched today and contains an impressive set of patterns you can browse online. Sign up to be notified when the book is released, and you could win one of five free copies. Check it out: http://mobiledesignpatterngallery.com

BabyCenter, My Baby Today App

jydesign — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 20:39:05 +0000

Client: BabyCenter | Agency: Theresa Neil Interface Design (TNiD) | Role: Visual Designer

I worked with TNiD on visual designs for this follow up to BabyCenter’s popular “My Pregnancy Today” app. “My Baby Today” provides helpful resources and checklists for new parents. Read more on Theresa Neil’s Blog or Download from the App Store…

Backbase

jydesign — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:44:13 +0000

Client: Backbase | Agency: Theresa Neil Interface Design (TNiD) | Role: Visual Designer

TNiD was engaged by Backbase to create their Retail Bank of the Future experience for Finovate 2011. I helped with the visual design. The experience spans multiple platforms and “stretches the limits of today’s front-end technologies across multiple devices and touch-points in order to create a centrally orchestrated Bank 2.0 end-user experience.” Watch the Backbase presentation from Finovate (video)…