UX Rule: Notification of Completion

Notification bars

So, as I move into exploring the realm of user experience(UX), I'm going to work on building a collection of rules for creating good user experiences. These rules are fast, but they aren't hard: every situation is different, and although these rules will be starting points, some negotiation may be required.

Rule One: All processing must display a notification to the user.

Read more to see my thoughts on when and how to do this.

 

Page Layout with Body IDs

HTML Code Snippet A while back I read about a technique to maximize the power of CSS: placing a unique ID on the <body> tag of your markup. Make each page have a unique body ID, and you can use CSS to override anything on that particular page if you want. I've played around with this a bit, and found it to be quite powerful technique.

 

Envisioning Information

Cover of Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte

I'd actually ordered this book on Amazon before I read a reference to Edward R. Tufte in Slide:ology, and so I was immensely happy when I finally got my copy in the mail. Envisioning Information is packed with rich examples of presenting complex, layered data in ways that are usable and even visually pleasing. I recommend this book to any one interested in usability and interface design.

Be warned though, that this book is dense with ideas, explanations, and images. It reads more like my college biology text book than a normal design book, and the vocabulary is often times as complex. Reading this book can be daunting, but so far, the value I've gotten back out of it has been immense.

I think my only complaint about this book is that it is beginning to become dated. Written in 1990, Tufte spends most of his time talking about designs created for printed media, and the examples of computer displays seem very primitive by today's standards. Luckily, media is no impediment to the concepts in Envisioning Information; "flatland" and "chartjunk" are the same if on a poster or on the web.

 

Slideology

Cover of Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte

I've fallen in love with Slide:ology by Nancy Duarte. This book covers just about everything you could want to know about how to design effective slide based presentations. If you have delivered a presentation or ever will deliver one, this book is for you. Whats even better is that even if you'll never deliver a presentation in your life, then this book might still be for you.

While focused on presentations, the concepts and insights in Slide:ology are very easily ported to the world of web design: make your point as clearly and simply as possible; images can speak louder then words; colors, fonts, images, everything contributes to the messages you are conveying to your audience.

Daurte also backs up the guidelines with tons of examples, both in terms of visual ideas to inspire you and in real-world examples of individuals who have employed specific techniques to deliver their message. Give it a spin and see what the world of Power Point can offer web designers.

 

Why You Must Learn to Love <label>

Once you start thinking about usability of internet forms, it starts to really stick in your head. You catch yourself filling out a form and going, "Man, they could probably get more people to fill this out if they just put a line break here, or used a different font color." Even I, a web developer, tend to shy away from forms that aren't easy to use, or ask for things I don't feel like telling them. Maybe thats why I have come to point that I actually get kind of angry when I see people skip out on using the simplest possible usability increaser: the <label> tag.

 

The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch

I just saw this cool article on the User Interface Engineering website, called The Quiet Death of the Major Re-Launch. This article calls out the "big relaunch" as being a potential pain point with users, and I have to agree whole heartedly. It doesn't really mention it in the article, but I think incremental role out of new features can also help to make realistic expectations for the results of updates. Its hard to get over hyped about updates to a single navigation menu. It also doesn't say that this is the perfect way to find out what changes are increasing your conversion rate; implementing one change at a time over a period of weeks lets you know which change is having an impact, and how.

 

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Jon in Chicago, July 2008

I'm Jon Hartmann and I'm a C# .Net developer by day, a ColdFusion guru by night, and all around Javascript fanatic. Stay right here to read my technical posts as I grapple with mysterious error messages, user interface design questions, and all things baffling and irksome about programming for the web. Learn more about me.

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