Slide deck for a presentation I made for St. Louis South County Toastmasters on the changing landscape of software development, the need to produce elegant, intuitive products and some of the principles for good design.

1. A New Case for
Software Development

2. As our case is new, so we
must think anew and act
anew.
- Abraham Lincoln, 1862

3. For the history of software,
it's been good enough to
make things possible. Now
success also depends on
making things easy.
- developer Billy Hollis

4. Universal Design Principles
• Aesthetics
• Simplification
• Organization
• Direction
• Color

5. Design Principles: Asthetics
• Attractiveness Bias
• Aesthetic-Usability
Effect
• Application to
Software
Development?

6. Design Principles: Simplification
• Pareto or 80/20 Rule
– roughly 80% of the
effects come from 20%
of the causes

7. Design Principles: Simplification
• Progressive Disclosure
– Gradually reveal
options and data as
they are required

8. Design Principles: Simplification
• Fitts’ Law – the time
required to rapidly
move to a target area
is a function of the
distance to the target
and the size of the
target

9. Design Principles: Simplification
• Hick’s Law – the time
to make a decision
increases as the
number of alternatives
increases

10. Design Principles: Organization
• Principle of Proximity
– Elements close
together are perceived
to be related

11. Design Principles: Organization
• Principle of Similarity
– Similar elements are
perceived to be
related

12. Design Principles: Direction
• Affordance – visual
clues indicating how
an object is to be used

13. Design Principles: Direction
• Constraints – disabling
controls that shouldn’t
be used
• Feedback – visual
indications of what is
happening
• Forgiveness – the
ability to undo an
action

14. Design Principles: Color
kuler.adobe.com

15. Universal Design Principles
• Universal Principles of Design - William Lidwell,
Kritina Holden, Jill Butler
• Design for Software - Erik Klimczak
• uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com
• visualstudiomagazine.com
• pluralsight.com - UX course by Billy Hollis

16. Richard Hiers, PMP CSM
Director of ITS
Covenant Theological Seminary
www.covenantseminary.edu
richard.hiers@covenantseminary.edu
314-392-4135