h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm doing some user interface design at the moment. It makes a nice change to be doing it hands-on, as opposed to telling other people how to do it.

I used to do this full time, oooh, mumblemumble years ago, when I was employed designing user screens for photocopiers. Back in those days, graphics capabilities were limited, so we had to be a bit tricksy with how we did the graphics. (similar in the current job which involves an industrial process controller with a small, VGA screen).

Anyway...I developed various Design Principles which became my catchphrases. One of these was. 'Mickey Mouse's Fingers' In the early days of Disney, the animators discovered that when they drew Mickey with four fingers fingers and a thumb, his hand looked like a bunch of bananas. If they used three fingers - it more resembled a hand. The same is true of The Simpsons. So 'Mickey Mouse's Fingers' became my version of 'Less is more'.

Another one was to do with the way that tiny details can suddenly become over-apparent when you see them on the screen. I called this 'Centaurs' Nipples'. In 'Fantasia', there's a shot where some she-centaurs in the background gallop towards some he-centaurs in the foreground. The artists discovered that if they drew the she-centaurs' nipples in at the wrong moment, they'd suddenly look far too glad to see the he-centaurs.

Pretty soon he stopped painting nipples altogether.

Your work sounds much more interesting than mine. No centaur nipples or anything like that here, just number-crunching. And I'm even expected to come in to the office next Tuesday, the day after my grandmother's funeral, and use the rest of my bereavement leave later in the week, because The World Might End if someone else had to cover for me just one day.

I'd much rather being drawing cartoon character fingers. Guess which finger I'd start with?

What kind of interface are you designing (if it's not too confidential or a Trade Secret or anything)?

(Of course now that I've assumed the worst and moaned about having to come in next week to work on my consolidated financials, it turns out everyone else in the department has busted their asses this week to get them ready for me- in two working days!- so I can consolidate them tomorrow.)

for going off on one in your journal, Ed. God, I'm moody this week.

Consider the camera op or Director of Photography's dilemma. A less-than-gorgeous, weather worn or perhaps makeup-less female doesn't deserve a close up but when that female is amply endowed and isn't wearing a brassiere for example, a wider shot isn't such a great idea either. Nipples are rogue beasts, subject to any number of excitations, bless 'em.

>>What kind of interface are you designing

Basically, it's the control interface for a chemical plant. So far, it's been hacked together by engineers - and it looks like it. Some important information is hard to see - and if operators get it wrong, things can go 'Boom!!!'

Graphically speaking, it's not the most cutting-edge stuff. This kind of plant tends to feature legacy equipment - hence the cheapo, VGA screen, etc. etc. It can't even do windowing - or even vector or pixel graphics. So the challenge is to do something sensible within the technical constraints.

A lot of it is to do with deciding how bet to use (what I call) the Real Estate - what information does the screen really have to show up front or within one button press, and what can be tucked away somewhere. (And how to let the guys know what's tucked away where)

And I'm just the man for the job.

(You're allowed to be moody this week, btw.)

cl:

Didn't Howard Hughes have a problem with Jane Russell's nipples?

I don't think he had any problem with her nipples.

Other people, however.....

Jeezo! It's gets worse. *Sixteen* colours, not 256!

I know I advocate that designs should also work in monochrome (another of my maxims: 'Everyone is colour blind')...but even so...it now feels like I've had *both* hands tied behind my back and am having to bash the keyboard with my forehead.



I'm wasted on these people.

- at the journal entry.

for thinking of us colourblind people.

and it sounds it!

The hardest part is working with engineers who think they already know how to design usable user interfaces.