"Jensen Harris from the Office 2007 design team gave a very rare presentation at Microsoft’s MIX08 event today about not what the Office 2007 Fluent (Ribbon) interface is about, but instead how it came to be and what other concepts they tried. He admitted himself it was the first time ever in a public venue where they’ve shown these never-before-seen prototypes of what would become Office 2007."

Pretty neat seeing the various possibilities. I'm quite liking the result, although some of the colour schemes here are very nice.

"Sometime this year when AIR becomes truly cross platform (Mac, Windows, and Linux) it's going to open up a whole new world to designers: Linux... But there's a problem, Linux applications are damn ugly. They have this kind of semi Windows 95 feel to them that gives some geek cred but isn't at all pleasing to the eye. Take a look at the Rhythmbox Music Player (the design of the site is a perfect representation) that is default player for MP3s. That's developer art at its finest."

Thank god someone agrees with me publicly. Of course, he got attacked for saying it though - what else did you expect?

"With computers as common a household appliance as televisions now, who might be using your web-application has expanded beyond the realm of just the power user. Complicated menu systems, alert dialog messages that lock you out of the browser and flashy but confusing layouts aren’t necessarily going to help you make conversions. The Web user demographic has changed and to make your web application appeal to the masses your user interface needs to teach and to guide."

Nice article on the role of web user interfaces - some food for thought.

"Designing an account registration and sign-in process that doesn't frustrate users turns out to be very difficult to achieve. It looks easy at the outset, but a pile of subtleties can sneak up on your experience, making something that should be simple become stressful for the users... Here are 8 common design mistakes we often see as we watch users try to create accounts and sign into the site."

Nice list, good explanations. Don't agree with all of them - some can be security risks, but more sites should put this much consideration into signin systems.

"It’s a browser app which converts rasterised images into vectorised ones (eps and svg), kinda like Illustrator’s LivePaint feature, only free."

Check this out, especially if you go to the VectorMagic site and click on Comparisons. If they are to be believed, these guys are definitely one step ahead, and it's free! Very useful tool for graphic design, especially when dealing with crappy companies who don't have or won't give you the vector copy.

"The importance of typography in design can’t be overestimated. The accuracy, precision and balance of geometric forms can give letters the elegance and sharpness they deserve. Besides, elegant fonts can help to convey the message in a more convenient way... In this article we’d like to present an overview of over 40 excellent free fonts you might use for your professional designs in 2008. "

Good reference for those with a thing for typography and are on the cheap, I mean frugal, side :)

"I got to hang out with Mark Anders and Steven Heintz tonight and talk about Thermo. I'm going to be helping out with the evangelism side of Thermo and sitting in on the product team meetings so I'm hoping to capture as much feedback from you guys as possible. The best perk though? Getting the first run Thermo sticker for my laptop and sticking it over the Apple logo."

I wonder why more companies don't do stickers like this...great idea. Although Mac users may be fairly defensive to covering up their leader's logo :)

"Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been driving the design of a cross platform shape and control set for Firefox 3... Our goals are to design an interface that is simple, modern, and visually lighter than previous versions of Firefox. A lot of careful thought went into determining which controls we could integrate or remove. We also focused a lot on how we could leverage visual design (namely grouping and patterns) to form a user interface that is both simpler and easier to use."

Very interesting, not only for Firefox, but also the design/branding process they went through and reasons behind it.