Designing Learning Technology

Fri, 07 Feb 2003

Radio post #162
One of the major issue I deal with designing cross-platform educational applications is trying to resolve the inconsistencies between human interface guidelines on Windows and Mac platforms. What looks right on one platform often looks a little off on the other, and an occasion there are flat out inconsistencies between the two. Even trying to design for Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X, or for Win 98 and Win XP, reveals basic inconsistencies in default button size, system font, etc. As a result, we often end up using purely graphic buttons, much like javascript-driven rollovers on the web, simply because it allows us to standardize across platforms, and also gives our graphic artists greater control over the visual theme of the window. Of course, this means our apps don't have native platform look-and-feel, but given the heterogenous nature of the educational market, that's a tradeoff we're willing to accept. Some specific links: I'm more familiar with Apple's HI guidelines, which are fairly explicit about the layout of interface elements. Microsoft's guidelines were a little harder to find, and interesting in that they abstract design away from the pixel, at least in terms of dialogs (you lay things out in terms of DLUs -- dialog layout units. Finally, a good general collection of interface links is at Mackido.

@07.26 #

Radio post #161
Upcoming ubiquitous technology conference: the 5th IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems & Applications, October 9-10, 2003 in Santa Cruz, California. Submissions due May 23.

@07.14 #

Radio post #160
So does leaving no child behind mean that future Americans will understand the difference between means and medians well enough to send Bush's tax plan arguments packing? This NY Times editorial from just prior to the state of the union address picks this nit.

@07.12 #

Radio post #159
Apple's come up with a way to control non-scriptable applications from AppleScript. It's OS X only, but it opens up all sort of possibilities.

@07.03 #

Radio post #158
Blogs were made for links like this. Which Sesame Street Muppet Are You?

@07.00 #