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The numbers are in and Apple has more cash in the bank ($75.875 billion) than the U.S. government has for its entire operating balance ($73.768 billion). Steve help Obama !
Qwiki
The design patterns of design
The design patterns of design
Design is visual
A picture is worth a thousand words. Make your interface clear and easy to understand through visual elements. Of course you would need language, flow, hierarchy etc. But its all about clarity. A visual design element takes away a lot of cluttered text from your interface while at the same time providing the users with a much easier to understand visual cue. Remember, clear web interfaces do not need manuals to use them.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”
Even Google’s design is moving towards a more “dolled-up” design compared to their initial approach of plain black text on white background with minimal images. You would now notice how they have started adding those drop down shadows and the rounded corners and the gradients to their design elements. Something which looks good is always inviting and many a times it can actually increase the forgiveness of a user towards flaws in your interface. However one has to draw a line as to where aesthetics starts to encroach upon usability or functionality.
The key is in saying no to a lot of good features over a few great features
Its always hard to let go of that nice feature you thought of last night. Harder still is the urge to try and show all the features or information on the same web page. You don’t want your users to miss out on that cool feature do you ? Well yes but its all about prioritization and choice. You have to drill down to those 2-3 key features you want to show case on a page. That doesn’t mean that you are depriving your users of those features. You can always have your second best features a “Click” away or a “Lightbox” away or a “Tooltip” away. There are many ways of showing information on demand.
Now some would argue that Facebook has so may features crammed into their pages and we all know how successful Facebook is right ? So don’t forget that when Facebook started it was dead simple. They kept on adding features and tools as and when they evolved based on their own research and the pain areas of the ever evolving users. What that means is that the users had enough time to keep on assimilating the old features as and when the new ones came along. This is a continuous process. No successful web startup ever started with 100 features crammed into their page. That could only lead to interface bloat. The key is concision. Specially when you know that someone is going to see and use this for the first time and he/she would have as little as a few seconds to pass a verdict on your interface !
Remember the usual suspects
Don’t forget the power of familiarity while you design an interface. You can almost take it for granted that a form field with a downward pointing twisty will when clicked show a list of options to select from. This is something you can leverage even for users who would be visiting your page for the first time.
Tell them whats happening
Nothing should not be taken for granted. Users do expect to know about each and every interaction. Create an interface which is fast and responsive. Response time is important as faster is always better. And give feedback in the form of information callouts, tooltips and feedback about every user action.
Forgive them as they would forgive you
If you expect users to forgive your interface flaws you should also have your interface prepared to forgive your users when they make a mistake. You must have noticed the small yellow box which appears with a blue link “undo” whenever you delete a message in your Gmail client. This is a perfect example of 2 things. Responsiveness and forgiveness. The immediate feedback tells you that you have just deleted some messages. If this was an error, it is also giving you the option to revert this mistake by giving you a clear call-to-action element with the feedback itself so that you can correct your mistake.
