2010: The Year of Common Sense User Experience

Perhaps I’m becoming a curmudgeon in my old(er) age – or could it be that I’ve seen it all before?  The original cleanliness of Web 2.0 has devolved into a hodgepodge of sliding interfaces, pop-up dialogues, and multiple clicks. Nothing like a good dose of history repeating itself because it’s nothing new. Before there were the AJAX libraries of Web 2.0, there were Flash sliding interfaces, pop-up dialogues, and multiple clicks.  Seems like we’ve landed right back on the same old Flash paradigms of the turn-of-the-century. No need to have history repeat itself; let’s make 2010 the year of common sense user experience.

Forget the fold, let ‘em scroll (vertically)

Back when the world was all print, we knew the best pieces had lots of white space and clean, concise copy.  After all, there was finite space to work with – 8.5 x 11, usually – and filling it meant sure death of the message. The client, however, usually had different ideas that started and ended with the more copy, the better. It was a user experience problem. A good designer could make a page full of text sparkle, but he also knew no one would read it, so the message was lost.

With the web, we’re in the same boat.  We know that more white space is best, because it allows us to focus user attention where we want it.  Recently (and historically) we’ve turned to paginating, tabs, content sliders or accordions to deal with this.

The accordion of Magento's one-click checkout is a great idea, focusing user attention where it needs to be. Problem is, it adds 4 additional clicks to a process that should only need one and makes it overly complicated to change info in a section the user has passed.

As a result, we’ve added an extra click that will lose readers. We’ve lost sight of the fact that the web page is no longer finite.  Don’t get me wrong, tabs and their ilk have their uses, but hiding important content shouldn’t be one of them. Sure, you need to have thoughtfully organized, lean copy and primary actions where a user can see them, but when confronted with more than can fit “above the fold,” use white space to its fullest by letting the text run. Users are well equipped to deal with this; they have a mouse wheel that makes it easy to scroll vertically.

Make the primary action of the page look like the primary action.

With the dense button and link interfaces of today’s web, it’s important to put things in perspective for your users. I always thought this was a no-brainer, but it’s surprising how many companies large and small get this wrong.

This should be easy. Just think about what you want every user to do on your page and make sure it’s obvious.  The most basic way to do this is to make the primary action look like a button and make it bigger, brighter, and better positioned then any other button on the page.

Twitter, for example, does this well.  They want people to tweet, so the top of my home page has the headline “What’s happening,” a  large text box, and an obvious “update” button.  Facebook looks spastic by comparison. I’m not sure what they want me to do. There’s so many similar looking boxes and blue links that it’s not at all apparent.  I would think they’d want me to share “what’s on [my] mind,” as sharing content is the key to their site’s growth, but it’s in light gray text in a light gray box that makes it blend into the page.

Of course, this lack of UX 101 hasn’t taken a toll on Facebook’s popularity, but it’s no excuse to do it on a site, especially one that’s less popular.

Think about it

User testing, heat maps, and analytics are great ways to see if users are getting the most out of your site.  Frankly, though, you shouldn’t need to go that far to know if it’s working.  Instead, use common sense.  All you should need to do is think about the primary objective of your site (Is it buying something? Sharing something? Reading something?) and how the page you’re looking at fits into that objective (Checkout page? List of posts?).  Now ask yourself, is this obvious?

About the author

Eric Sagalyn -

Eric Sagalyn joined the Tippingpoint Labs team in the summer of 2009, bringing a unique blend of user experience, visual design and development skills. At Tippingpoint Labs, Eric plays the role of "user advocate," insuring a user-centric approach to all technology solutions.

Over the past decade Eric has worked with startups, non-profits and publicly traded companies including Public Radio Exchange (PRX), uLocate/where.com, WGBH/NCAM and the Boston Beer Company, brewer of Sam Adams. His extensive experience in new technology has led him to unique opportunities, including launching one of the first location-based iPhone app, Where, co-founding Drync, a mobile wine journal, and, in 2005, live-blogging the birth of his son (with his wife’s blessing, of course).

When not advocating on behalf of users everywhere, Eric is a classically trained chef, beer connoisseur, explorer, fighter of epic Lego battles and all-around family man.

"Too often business requirements and a users needs are at odds. But it doesn't need to be that way. Understanding both allows us to align requirements with needs to provide the best solution for everyone."