Adam DuVander on keeping it simple
In an interview with Jeff Veen, the user experience designer has a simple description of his method:
“I just want to make sure that I understand the kinds of things they’re trying to do, and that I can help them do that.”
From this, we can glean a two-question process for focusing on the user:
Similar concepts in Simplicity Rules:
I don’t want to be preachy, but here are two things you can do that take very little effort in comparison to how it will help others.
Your body regenerates blood. It’s one of the wonders of the body. You can give a pint every 56 days and most never feel any negative effects. Your blood is then available to people at moments when they really need it.
Find a blood donation center today.
Let me dispel the largest rumor about organ donation: they won’t take your body parts until you’re done with them. That means you’re dead.
It’s a morbid thing to think about, and I know many people feel uncomfortable with the idea of their lung or heart going inside another’s chest. I understand this, and if you can’t get over it, don’t sign up.
But I sure wish you would. Like you, I rather like all my organs where they are right now. And that’s the good news, you can keep your organs now, just make your donation wishes known.
A couple good quotes from an interview with Craigslist’s CEO:
“Keep things simple. Be patient. Focus on user feedback.”
“Financial metrics aren’t something we focus on; they’re a pleasant side effect if we manage to do a good job by our users.”
That’s certainly a good path for them with their loyal user base. Could they really be a pattern most could follow?
For more of Craigslist shunning convention, check out some redesigns they’ll never use.
via Reemer
Somewhere around the dawn of Internetdom, a study said that users don’t scroll. Ever since then, we’ve been cramming everything we’ve got into the first screen, “above the fold” (a term borrowed from newspapers).
Enlightenment from these dark ages has been slow. Over the last few years, new beliefs have emerged to eclipse the flat-earth thinking.
Milissa Tarquini summarizes the Above-the-Fold Myth, referencing research from as far back as 1997 that says, “don’t worry–let them scroll.”
Jared Spool suggests using the cut-off look to encourage users to scroll. By not designing to squeeze above the fold, we engage the user to scroll further.
Tarquini’s also points to ClickTale’s research on scrolling, which shows that 22% of people scroll all the way to the bottom. Considering that a good number of people probably find something click-worthy before they reach the end, that’s a high number of people scrolling way to the bottom.
What do we give them? Derek Powazek says to Embrace Your Bottom:
“In this business, a user that actually reads all the way to the bottom of a page is like gold. They’re your best, most engaged, happiest users. You know, because they haven’t clicked away. They did the best possible thing they could do, and now they’re at the bottom of the page. And how do you reward them?
With a copyright statement. Maybe, if they’re lucky, some bland footer navigation.”
Justin Kistner has some good footer examples. Do you have any?
Paging through search results is part of life on the web. The best ones give perspective. Where am I?
I looked at four sites that I use often and have paged search results. There is a lot more to search than paging between results, so there are other ways to show perspective. For now, I’m going to focus on navigating around results.
Looking at the first list, it appears there are seven pages of results. I go to the seventh page and learn there are at least three more pages. This will happen again if I click the tenth page, and continue on and on.
While Technorati gives me a good idea of where I am locally, my vision forward is obstructed. On the other hand, their global view backward is pretty good, making it easy to take me to the first result.
This is very similar to the Technorati results, but Flickr has changed a couple things. The addition of the ellipsis after the seventh page warns me that there are more than seven pages. An ellipsis is also added to the left side of the list when I get to the tenth result.
Flickr makes me very aware of where I am locally, but sends me for my calculator globally. 32,120 results at 24 per page means… 1,339 pages?
Easily the worst of this group. When I get to the tenth page, I have to click the next link to roll over into the second set of ten pages. Yahoo! Real Estate gives me no local perspective, nor much global perspective beyond the total listings.
Finally, the best of the lot. On the first page of results, I can access the final page. When I’m somewhere in the middle, I had ready access to the three adjacent pages in either direction. Realtor.com has good local perspective, and globally, I can always navigate to the first or last page.
These are four different result sets, which are searches with very different purposes. The paging mechanism can be generalized to a long, ranked list. Providing some perspective of where we are locally and globally can communicate the list’s organization and make a little more sense of a search.
I’m looking for other examples, and your thoughts. Is this sort of perspective important? Who does it well?
