A Word from Joel - Part 2
In the second part of Joel Spolsky’s User Interface Design for Programmers series, a few more interesting ideas are raised.
The first idea is that users do not read manuals, and they do not read instructions. This was one of the forces behind my conversational interface convention. With only a few exceptions, it is not always clear what pressing a button will do. The “Edit” button edits what? Edits the whole page? Edits the photo above? Edits the text below? Given that users do not read manuals or instructions, how can we educate the user? My current resolution is to put the button within a sentence.
Placing a button within the context of a sentence supports both new users and frequent users. New users can skim the text and be sure of what that button will do. Frequent users will “tune out” the surrounding text and will just see the three clickable buttons. Sure, this takes up more vertical space than if three unadorned buttons were placed side by side. But a webpage is a document with virtually unlimited vertical space, unlike a desktop application where the screen space is limited. I feel that the user-friendliness of this approach is worth the price of the vertical space it requires.
A second interesting idea put forth is the following:
“An important rule of thumb is that user models aren’t very complex. When people have to guess how a program is going to work, they tend to guess simple things, rather than complicated things.”
If you’ve been following my ramblings for a while, you’ll know that I agree with this rule of thumb in the strongest possible way. But let me tell you a concern that I have. I am so astonished at the complexity that developers introduce to interfaces that I have started to wonder whether I am actually a bit stupid. There’s only two possible truths. Either 99% of developers are right—users accept complexity—and I’m wrong. Or, I’m right—users expect simplicity—and 99% of developers are wrong. If you think I’m being modest, I’m not. This truly worries me. So that I don’t fall into another sea of doubt, I’m going to presume that Joel is right, most other developers are wrong, and I should aim to make Charlie as simple to use as possible.
by Alister Jones | Next up: A PowerPoint Interface Convention →
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Definately liking this idea :)
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