One of my interests is user experience design.  User experience design is not only about the shape and look. Steve Jobs had a very famous quote concerning design and I believe that it is very true.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works

It seems that not many companies understood this principle. One of these few companies that understood and followed this principle, in my opinion, is Dropbox.

Dropbox has focused on a two points since it was launched. Ease of use and Working everywhere. You can now find dropbox clients almost for any platform you're working on. And Dropbox is dead simple to use. You don't have to learn or remember anything about it and this,in my opinion , is the secret sauce of Dropbox success.

Recently I got email from Dropbox announcing a cool new feature which is Dropbox links.

Now you can make links to files or folders in your Dropbox. Quickly share your photos, docs, and videos with friends and colleagues — even if they don't have Dropbox!

Is this the new feature, I believe no cause I've shared items via dropbox with people who didn't have dropbox before but what's new is this

Click the picture to enlarge it!

Notice now how simple it is to share files and even complete folder to anyone. It's extremely simple. Dropbox UX Design team is genius, no doubt about it.

I recommend that you try this new feature and tell me your opinion

I read in the previous week about use cases of iPad and summarized this in this simple note quoting from one of Jacob Nielsen 's posts.

What Are iPads Used For?
The most common uses reported by our participants were 

• Playing games
• Checking email and social networking sites
• Watching videos/movies
• Reading news
• People also browsed the Web and performed some shopping-related research. But most users felt that it was easier to shop on their desktop computers. Some also worried about the security of e-commerce purchases on the iPad.

A common characteristic of all this iPad use is that it's heavily dominated by media consumption, except for the small amount of production involved in responding to emails.

About half the users carried the iPad with them frequently; the other half used it mainly at home or on longer trips.

This is a great contribution from Smashing Magazine.
The Ultimate great collection for mockup creation and wireframing.
Free Wireframing Kits, UI Design Kits, PDFs and Resources

Here's the link
Enjoy!

En Shaa Allah in this series I will summarise the knowledge I absorb from reading Josh Clark's book "Tapworthy iPhone Applications".
I will put each chapter knowledge and quotes in a single blog posts.


Starting with the introduction and Chapter 1, Here we go.

• "Design is what your app does, how it works, how it presents itself to your audience" 
• "If you don’t get it right in your first outing, most people won’t look back"
• "According to one survey, nearly half of all apps are downloaded based on a friend’s recommendation"
• "Loyal users spread the word, but few apps ever manage to create that big fan base"
• "careless ≠ dumb"
• "People don’t want dumb from your app; they want simplicity and ease"
• "Great apps don’t make us think—at least not about their interfaces. They embrace complicated tasks but shield us from all the complexity under the hood, making it effortless for us to glide through and accomplish our goals"
• "Simple is hard, and effortless takes lots of work. But those adjectives are the hall-marks of great design"
• "Your mission in designing the user experience is to make sure that every screen and every action delivers delight, efficiency, and results" 

And this was my output from the intro and Chapter 1

If U have read it before, or just read the points I listed before, your comments are surely welcomed.

This is a cool presentation by Amir Khella

Are you a Developer, Designer, Software Architect, someone who draws blocks on paper ?
if Yes then Dia is for you. Dia is a diagram Maker and Editor. It's free and Open Source.
I recommend it, it is available for Linux and Windows. i think you can have it easily on Mac.
click this link to get Dia
If you tried it share your experience below via comments

10 Rules of Good Design by Dieter Rams
1. Good design should be innovative
2. Good design should make a product useful
3. Good design is aesthetic design
4. Good design will make a product understandable
5. Good design is honest
6. Good design is unobtrusive
7. Good design is long lived
8. Good design is consistent in every details
9. Good design should be environmentally friendly
10. Good design is as little design as possible