Thinking about interface design. One of… 

Thinking about interface design.

One of my projects this week is to think through a very specific design problem.

One of our iPhone applications, Formula Sensei solves scientific formulae. The concept is simple, but the application very useful. For our next release, we want to add the ability to solve for resistors in series or parallel. Both of these equations pose a new interface problem that didn’t exist for the formulae already present in the application: to add and remove variables in the equation. All of the other formulae have fixed numbers of variables. As such, I have spent a great deal of time thinking, writing about, and sketching ways to add and remove members from a list of input values in a way that feels intuitive to the user, and fits with the flow of the existing interface.

Expect a more full writeup, with pictures at some point in the next couple of days.