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I am a Crazy Person

inqk.net

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Re: I am a Crazy Person

#21

Post by roadnottaken »

So does he think there should just be less content? It's one thing for a blog (e.g. daring fireball) to have a sweet minimalistic design that only shows you one thing at a time... but sites like Amazon and the NYTimes have an absolutely massive amount of content that they're trying to provide. How is the NYTimes supposed to make a sleek, un-cluttered interface when they have 3000 new articles every day? And it's not junk -- nearly every one of those articles is thoughtful and well-written. They all deserve some attention.

Do you have any examples of websites that have ginormous amounts of content and simple, un-cluttered interfaces? And don't say google, because that's different.

Re: I am a Crazy Person

#22

Post by hernan7 »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
jarin wrote: post #5

I went to a talk by one of Amazon's UX researcher guys, and Amazon's clutter boils down to a simple thing: Cram a bunch of ways of finding products on to every page (except for the checkout flow), and people will find at least one thing that works for them. It's completely offensive to our designer sensibilities, but what they've found is that users just tune out the parts of the page that don't work for them and go…

For a real-life version of that visit an IKEA store, they practically force you to walk by their whole collection. It's the one reason I absolutely loathe going there.

That's true, if you want to buy anything from them, be prepared to spend a lot more time than needed. The store I sometimes go to is organized as basically one long aisle spanning two floors. Contrast with Home Depot or any supermarket, where you have several parallel aisles. So yes, the store is not optimized to make find what you want quickly -- I guess they want to make buying from them an "experience".

To their credit, they do give away those little maps of the store -- don't remember if they include the shortcuts on them. Oh, and the smoked salmon is good too.

Re: I am a Crazy Person

#23

Post by wtracy »

hernan7 wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a real-life version of that visit an IKEA store, they practically force you to walk by their whole collection. It's the one reason I absolutely loathe going there.

That's true, if you want to buy anything from them, be prepared to spend a lot more time than needed. The store I sometimes go to is organized as basically one long aisle spanning two floors. Contrast with Home Depot or any supermarket, where you have several parallel aisles. So yes, the store is not optimized to make find what you want quickly -- I guess they want to make buying from them an "experience". To their c…

The maps do include the shortcuts.

I have had memorable "experiences" at Ikea.

Re: I am a Crazy Person

#24

Post by damncabbage »

wtracy wrote: post #23
hernan7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's true, if you want to buy anything from them, be prepared to spend a lot more time than needed. The store I sometimes go to is organized as basically one long aisle spanning two floors. Contrast with Home Depot or any supermarket, where you have several parallel aisles. So yes, the store is not optimized to make find what you want quickly -- I guess they want to make buying from them an "experience". To their c…

The maps do include the shortcuts. I have had memorable "experiences" at Ikea.

I wasn't aware the cupboards were big and sturdy enough for that sort of "experience".

Re: I am a Crazy Person

#25

Post by pyrmont »

roadnottaken wrote: post #21

So does he think there should just be less content? It's one thing for a blog (e.g. daring fireball) to have a sweet minimalistic design that only shows you one thing at a time... but sites like Amazon and the NYTimes have an absolutely massive amount of content that they're trying to provide. How is the NYTimes supposed to make a sleek, un-cluttered interface when they have 3000 new articles every day ? And it's not…

I'm not sure to be honest. The title of the post is slightly facetious but really only slightly. I'm thinking I must have a problem because if there is no other way, and if this is not really a big problem for most web users, then it's my problem to deal with.

The immediate idea I have is not to used fixed layouts and less 'blurb'. I'm looking at the Opinion site at the moment (the design of which has changed since last night) and I'd prefer if instead of giving me a blurb about Nicholas Kristof's piece it just said Nicholas Kristof on the Millennium Development Goals.

I might look at mocking up an alternative, though. I'd like to see if I can come up with something that would suit at least me.

Re: I am a Crazy Person

#26

Post by rolloutroad »

damncabbage wrote: post #24
wtracy wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The maps do include the shortcuts. I have had memorable "experiences" at Ikea.

I wasn't aware the cupboards were big and sturdy enough for that sort of "experience".

Oh, there are a LOT of things you're not aware of, bud.
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