Little Big Details helps designers catalog the many UI details they encounter.

As designers, we all realize that the most intuitive user interface often requires the most work. But as users, we always appreciate a thoughtful UI touch that makes that smartphone or laptop that much easier to use. And some UI decisions, like the fact that you can tap the clock on the iPhone to scroll up to the top immediately, act like "Easter eggs" until one day you discover them by accident or someone tells you.

Which is why I was happy to stumble across Little Big Details, a blog that lists out those little UI details that, well, turn out to be much bigger when you stop to think about it. And that serves as good design fodder for your work.

Apple serves as regular fodder, of course. The slide to unlock feature for all the notifications was new to me, but it should have been obvious, given the icon placement (Brye Kobayashi's proposal for the new lock screen, via our discussion boards was met with mixed opinions). But others are less obvious, like the fact that Google Calendar places a subtle arrow on an event that continues to next week, or that Twitter only displays the "http" part a link when you highlight it for copy and pasting.

It's easy to join and submit a detail, and judging by the number of via notes, Little Big Details has become quite an active community. It's a great Tumblr or Twitter account to follow, and maybe it will help you train your eye as well as you navigate all the varoius interfaces online. It certainly has for me.