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UC and UX

Great little article at UX Magazine applying some ideas from Understanding Comics to icon design and related issues.

I’ve given some talks on similar issues during web design workshops; focusing on the challenges of what I’ve been calling “cognitive load time”: how fast do users grok what’s on their screen, regardless of how fast it all renders/downloads? Looks like the idea is just as relevant in other UX circles.

One of the important benefits of fast-loading, iconic imagery is that we not only understand each piece of an interface more quickly and intuitively, we can also absorb the whole screen’s many relationships or patterns more easily. Knowing the Parts = Appreciating the Whole.

Chapter Two… Glad I wrote that one.

[via Tom Crawford and Nathan Bashaw]


Discussion (5)¬

  1. Pauliuw says:

    I like the iconic imagery because they fit better and looks better too in most designs. The realistic one’s usually looks too realistic to fit in overall design of a GUI

  2. Grow-Nups says:

    i feel as if the whole idea is letting the users look at the page, and even though they’ve never seen it before, they know what things are even before they click and see. creating familiarity and user friendliness without tech guides… good insight

  3. […] Cartooning Principals Applied to Interface Design (Original Source: UX Magazine – via Scott McCloud) […]

  4. […] Cartooning Principals Applied to Interface Design (Original Source: UX Magazine – via Scott McCloud) […]

  5. Travis Seitler says:

    “Cognitive load time” is an excellent way to put it! I’ve been dealing with that issue for years as a web designer without knowing quite how to label it.