At some point in most projects you'll probably feel that you've done all the copying that you can, and that you've got design problems that really call for new solutions. Here are some things to do.

Example: Tog's One-or-more Button.

Bruce Tognazzini has a great example of process of innovation in "Tog on Interface" (Reading, MA: Addison Wesley, 1992), a book you should read, especially, but not only, if you are a Mac person. He recounts the design of a kind of button that requires the user to turn on at least one of them. Repeated try-outs with users were completely crucial to success.

HyperTopic: The Good Old Days, When Designers Were Designers

If you look at design case studies in the literature you are likely to be misled about what's involved in good design. Many of the most interesting case studies, such as those for the Xerox Star, come from a good while ago (Smith, D.C., Irby, C., Kimball, R., Verplank, W., and Harslem, E. "Designing the Star user Interface." Byte, 7:4 (April 1982), pp. 242-282). They tell you about designing something that was totally revolutionary in its day. Virtually every feature of the interface was an innovation, so virtually every feature was subjected individually to intensive design study including user testing. These studies tell you about the heroic age of design.

But you are probably not creating something totally revolutionary. In fact, as we've been advising, you should be trying hard not to, in most situations.

Even contemporary case study reports can be misleading. These reports usually focus on the innovations, because that's where the news and interest are. This means you don't really learn how to get your job done from these studies.