designing_interfaces.ep

Put three elements on the main page of the site or app: a featured article or product, a search box, and a list of items or categories that can be browsed.

Design Discussion
1. We already have EV_VERT/HORZ boxes, but perhaps they need something a little higher: specialized containers? Use-case?
2. The search component can be used anywhere, not just here. The GO! button needs a "Searcher" or "Finder" object that is linked by an agent in an actions queue.
3. The feature is hardly anything special. It is just a container for some form of VIEW. What this brings up is the generic notion of a "VIEW" -- what is it and do all of these things have VIEW somewhere in the lineage? Is the EV_VERT/HORZ bit above just this in practice: a VIEW?
4. The "Browser" bits are the most interesting. Is there a notion of a browser? Define browser?

Browser: A VIEW that allows a user to access a filtered list of things (either text, graphics, or both).

The browser receives a list of things from some client.

Show time-sensitive items in a reverse chron list, with the latest items at the top. Update it dynamically, and combine the items from different sources or people into one single stream.

Use thumbnails, item views, and a browsing interface to create familiar structure for managing photos, videos, and other pictoral forms.

Arrange data displays into a single information-dense page, updated regularly. Show users relevant, actionable, information, and let them customize the display as necessary.

What
Place an iconic-palette next to a blank canvas; the user clicks on the palette buttons to create objects on the canvas (e.g. drag-n-drop or pick-n-drop).

Use When
You're designing any kind of graphical editor. A typical use-case involves creating new objects and arranging them on some virtual space.

Why
This pair of panels -- a palette with which to create things, and a canvas on which to put them -- is so common that almost every user of desktop software has seen it. It's a natural mapping from familiar physical objects to the virutal on-screen world. And the palette takes advantage of visual recognition: the most common icons (paintbrush, hand, magnifying class, etc.) are reused over and over again in different applications, with the same meaning each time.