🦆 Interaction Nerds by UXA
This week from Archive & Collection: why is Gmail the opposite of a good web design, and how to spice up your web design using shapes, borders and shadow.
👋 Announcements — What is HCI Recap, and Welcome New IN Content Creator!
We hope that everyone enjoyed a fun and spooky Halloween weekend! 🎃 This past week, UXA hosted our “What is HCI” event where we talked about everything from what HCI actually is, how it is different from UX/UI/other related disciplines, and what HCI looks like at CMU! Check out the notes and takeaways from this event that we compiled for you below! ✏️
In addition, the UXA newsletter team welcomes its newest member—Alana Wu! Alana will be working with the Archive and Collection team and will focus on providing quality content for the HCI community! 🤩
☘️ Industry — The Imperfections of Gmail
Let’s make a bet—you are currently reading this issue in Gmail. Whether we are right or not, Gmail, created in April 1st, 2004, has become almost the antonym of “good” web design. 😣
Adding on to the tweet above, this article The Imperfections of Gmail used Gmail as an example to point out some common pitfalls across web design, along with the trade-offs between having an intuitive user flow and providing the most context to each audience. 😯
🌾 Skill — 37 Ways to Spice Up Web Design
If you happen to meet Sean on campus, stop him, and show him a website, he most likely will look, nod his head, and say “it looks good!” However, if you push him a bit further and ask what makes it look good, you will notice his face turning red, opening his mouth and closing it a few times, and letting out “I don’t know…” at the very end. 🥺
Sean thinks that a good web design is a “feeling,” and he is curious about how to create this kind of feeling in his web designs. Luckily for him (and you reading this), this article talks about tips and tricks that you can use to boost your web design like tilting images and using double borders. You might all find things that you will need to take your website to the next level! 😎
🤔 Who’s behind the scenes?
Thanks for reading this week’s Interaction Nerds by CMU UXA! The editors behind this work are Sean Shen and Rebecca Jiang.
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