In April I blogged about metro style pictograms being the new sliced bread in icon design. Remember? The article was, of course, highly interesting, incredibly important and not to mention terribly knowledgeable – and naturally it was in no respect longwinded. Well. Let’s just say it was rather formal and academic. Today, dear reader, I am going to be emotional. And pretty much so. Why? Because bad user interface design can drive you up the wall.

An essential part of designing user interfaces consists of communicating about system behavior and functionality that has ultimately to be provided in the user interface in a user-friendly manner.

To transfer knowledge regarding system behavior / system functionality, a variety of methods can be used. Often, use case descriptions and screen scribbles are employed to provide the required information. When a user interface designer has a kickoff meeting for a project, for example, a stakeholder can scribble a screen that would provide essential system functionality so that the user interface designer gets a quick impression of certain system aspects. During requirements engineering, use case descriptions might have been created that are handed to the user interface designer to get a feeling for workflows that are carried out and the desired user-system interaction.

Both ways of documentation have their advantages and drawbacks.