Five Sketches™

If you decide to forego the design stage and reuse or copy an existing GUI or interaction design, your life is easier.
But how do you know when you have a standard to follow?
An obvious place to find standards is in the precedents set by your own Development team. If your standards are not documented, consider […]

I’m a big believer in following the standards for GUI and interaction design. But when do you copy or reuse an existing design, and when do you design something new? Here’s my guideline for when to design and when to reuse or copy the GUI and interaction:

Reuse
When…
Design

…there is an external standard.
For example: the Vista UX Guide recommends […]

I have two stories about command buttons.
Quite a few years ago, a team member walked me through a new dialog box. He entered some data, and then unintentionally clicked the Cancel button. He made this error twice in a row, thus losing his changes twice in a row. I pointed out that the OK and Cancel buttons […]