User Interface Blog

Today I read a great article on zooie’s blog about the future of tagging.

Vik Singh wrote about two ways for improving tagging:

• Support label hierarchies/groupings,
• Use multiple (but ‘normalized’, explained below) labels per object.

He also wrote about a possible machine learning algorithm for hierarchical multi-labeling tags.

External Links:

• The Future Of Tagging, Vik Singh.

We present Themail, a visualization that portrays relationships using the interaction histories preserved in email archives. Using the content of exchanged messages, it shows the words that characterize one’s correspondence with an individual and how they change over the period of the relationship.

This paper describes the interface and content-parsing algorithms in Themail. It also presents the results from a user study where two main interaction modes with the visualization emerged: exploration of “big picture” trends and themes in email (haystack mode) and more detail-oriented exploration (needle mode). Finally, the paper discusses the limitations of the content parsing approach in Themail and the implications for further research on email content visualization.

External Links:

Visualizing Email Content: Portraying Relationships from Conversational Histories (PDF)

The Excel blog published an excellent article containing examples of the new Ribbon user interface component in Excel 12.

The article contains the following examples:

• Find can be more than just find



• Paste can be Special too



• Wrap text to the forefront



• Text orientation too



• Number format



• Paste Names Renamed … A “Formula” tab example

External Links

Making features easier to find and quicker to use, Microsoft Excel Blog

Bryce Glass has created a great diagram on user experience.

“The idea was to emphasize the readability and approachability of the subject matter (keep it fun!) and not overload the map with too many concepts. Hence, this piece: “The Importance of User Experience.” (Used here with permission.)”