Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
smashingmagazine.com
Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
1–10 of 35 posts
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#280% of users use only 20% of software features - but they don't all use the same 20% (according to Linus, anyway).
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#3The lack of a button is a feature.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#4I thought that I was a GUI whiz, until an old mainframe programmer told me that the best user interface is no user interface at all.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#580% of users use only 20% of software features - but they don't all use the same 20% (according to Linus, anyway).
And Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, and pretty much any maker of any complex app. Hell, I bet that's even true for Basecamp.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#6This is a great article and it covers almost all the bases. The only thing I'd add is a discussion of UI refactoring. Over time, creeping featurism tends to take over. Your users will request every possible feature and your marketing department will want to add more check marks to your product's column in the feature matrix.
As this article points out, you have to be the bad guy and Just Say No most of the time. However, when a large subset of your users request a certain feature, the best response is often to refactor your design. Don't just add the feature. Figure out why they're requesting it. In other words, figure out why the current design is lacking. At that point you can come up with a new design which lets your users accomplish what they're trying to do.
User interfaces age like code bases in this way. If you keep adding to them, they get really ugly really quickly. If you instead take the time to refactor them, they can remain beautiful while becoming more capable.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#7The article has a lot of references to 37signals and is in the same spirit of advocating simplicity. The one link that got overlooked is the one that offers the most concrete advice on how to make a simpler interface - design from the inside out, what they call Epicenter Design:
http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch09_Epicenter_Design.php
I found myself often doing the opposite before reading that - I'd noodle on logo designs, navigation, and general information architecture tasks, even at early prototyping stages. It must be human nature.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#8I thought that I was a GUI whiz, until an old mainframe programmer told me that the best user interface is no user interface at all.
Cobol programmers are a goldmine of wisdom and knowledge. You will learn more about business software from an old, unsung bloke like Tony Marston than anybody celebrated methodology or blogsphere celebrity.
Having said that. I really wish more people would ignore them, for my own competitive benefit.
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#9This is a great article and it covers almost all the bases. The only thing I'd add is a discussion of UI refactoring . Over time, creeping featurism tends to take over. Your users will request every possible feature and your marketing department will want to add more check marks to your product's column in the feature matrix. As this article points out, you have to be the bad guy and Just Say No most of the time. How…
Fully true, but how many times you will be able to justify that refactoring to the ones who asked ?
Most of times, all they want in a "fast, small new important feature to put in a new menu item". It's hard to make them realize that because you add new features, most of times the dynamic of the UI has to be rethought.
And it ends usually in an application with countless menus and modes even for these menus. So redesign is important, but how do you justify to your marketing (or head programmer) that they have to "pay" for a redesign of what they "paid" already months ago, just for one feature ?
Re: Minimizing Complexity In User Interfaces
#10“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity."
- Charles Mingus
Couldn't have said it better myself. The UI is the work of art and the core features are the gems which capture the user's eye and imagination.