GDS has this design standard which all apps looking to be certified (obtain a foo.gov.uk domain) must follow.
Of course, if whatever you’re working on requires you bend the rules some times
as long as you are able to explain to the auditors how breaking the rule increases usability they will accroît if.
For example, the most recent GDS app I worked on (DfT roadworks are making an app that exposes all roadworks in GB so utility companies can collaborate and avoid digging the same hole days apart.
Our user research suggested that our users would much prefer a map (JavaScript) to a web form. We have a non-JS version but it I clearly a second citizen only there to meet the accessibility standard.
I love GDS, never have I used a group of websites where the user research is done so thoroughly that in many cases a fragmented sentence above the field is enough to explain what to do. They are pragmatic and quick to reply, only thing is they can be a bit optimistic (GOV Verify, GOV Pay, still don’t know what’s going on with their PaaS project) which left us in the lurch a bit on a previous project.
Ended up having to roll our own 2fa and using some Crapita gateway. There were so many reconciliations with this awful payment system that it basically became someone in finance’s full time job.
When Kwik-fit are buying 20,000 test slots per (day? Week? Can’t remember) you want to be sure you get if right or phones start ringing and front pages of Daily Mails start printing.
I can relate. After many years of obsessing over UI designs and document formats, I've recently begun to yearn the simplicity of the early web: simple, default font, black-on-white interfaces with textual hyperlinks. E.g. https://www.freesoft.org/CIE/Topics/75.htm, or perhaps even the minimalist, monospaced formats found in RFC's: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8484.
There's a certain relief that comes from being able to focus entirely on content/task because the interface remains stubbornly minimalist.
Overt cleverness is jarring and irritating. I think that’s the sort of creativity they’re talking about.
When I was starting as a developer I got a lot of pushback on some of the creative things I did and ended up redirecting a lot of that energy to reliability concerns, including human factors issues (human errors cause bugs). At this point I take - and use - “clever” as an epithet.
A victim of HN's "hug of death" I presume. For the author's next post, perhaps he can talk about good DevOps or hosting on Amazon S3 or Github pages etc. instead of a $5/mo VPS that will buckle under any sort of load. :)
The article shows how UX used to be really bad but was improved upon. The improvements were creative at the time, so in the case were design introduces something new that has a better UX than in the past there we can see that creativity was a requirement.
Aside from that in a boring UI many UX mistakes can arise not from creativity but from lack of thought, or perhaps not being creative enough to solve a problem or even see it.
Design has always been a balance of usability and the emotional connection we create through our products.
I find most designers go through two phases, starting out they are very free form and fancy-graphics-for-the-sake-of-graphics approach, mostly because they can, which is where all newbies start. Then they learn about usability/functional design after reading something like "Design of Everyday Things" [1] which does a great job of selling why the functional nature of the product matters first-and-foremost as much or more as the way it looks. This is the first step in being a good and useful designer.
But people don't realize that same author Don Norman released an equally important book called "Emotional Design" [2] which digs deeper into why something like an Apple product is not only easy-to-use but is designed in such that it melds into our life cleanly, it goes beyond just being a useful tool to where it becomes part of our identity and we treat it like a piece of art.
The mature designers learn that good design goes beyond merely simplifying a 5 click process down to 2 (for example), towards crafting something that creates an emotional connection with the people buying it. For example: sometimes adding an extra 3rd step which communicates information or eases anxiety in the user is more important than the lowest amount of clicks/time to action is completed.
Yet most usability-obsessed designs would dismiss this as unnecessary distraction when the immediate 'conversion' should be 100% the goal, instead of realizing the wider emotional experience that exists in these same processes. It's easy to get someone to click a red button over a black one for psychological reasons, but it takes good design to have it naturally flow as part of the goal in the users mind at the time, which helps create a solid long-term connection with the customer.
The type of relationship where people recommend your product to others, not just solving their problem quickly and forgetting it.
This is the more abstract and intuitive part of design that reaches beyond what the more scientific approach to usability and functional design can achieve by itself. That's were things like aesthetics, colour, copywriting, and the whole experience buying the product and interacting with the company comes in. The stuff that seems like excess in a totally functional perspective. This is what turns a product from merely more useful than the rest of the market into something that is coveted and sought-out by customers when they see the brand name or designer behind it. It's the attention to the details and experience of the humans using your product, not just robots greased to the credit card page the quickest.
Most software/hardware sucks at even getting the functional parts down, which is why it gets hyped up and valued so much - which is fine, that's where the lowest hanging fruit will remain. But that doesn't mean it stops there.
Absolutely wonderful description. (This comment was more interesting than the blog post). I've been trying to figure out how to justify to PMs/etc that we should spend time to make delightful software, and "emotional design" seems like just the thing. I really enjoyed The Design of Everyday Things; I'll have to give Emotional Design a read!
> I find most designers go through two phases, first they are very free form and fancy-graphics-for-the-sake-of-graphics approach, mostly because they can, which is where all newbies start. Then they learn...why the functional nature of the product matters as much as the way it looks
I think design norms new media are the same. Why <blink>? Because we can.
I think the author is trying to say is that feature creep and cramped designs are bad. Definitely! A minimalist design (like google's) is definitely a creative design. Think of Apple, their most creative and successful designs were rooted in minimalist ideas.
We had to change it to the current design since a lot of users were fidgeting about the lack of 'more' content. We came to the conclusion UIUX is not something to be fixed but a matter of how comfortable your end users are.
> We find average faces to be the most attractive because they are easier for our brains to process.
This point might be shoehorning attractiveness into the usability of interfaces. I don’t know that “average” facial features are attractive because they “don’t make us think” in the same vein. Everything I’ve heard points to average facial features being attractive because they are indicative of diversified genetics. (which could provide an advantage against birth defects, vulnerability to viruses, and genetic disease)
> We've watched websites become increasingly similar as standard web conventions have been formed and adopted. Some of these include...social media icons in the footer
I've never used these buttons, but I'm not a normal web user, so I'd love to know how much use they get. I'd bet less than one in 10,000 pageviews get a like button click.
They are there for analytics purposes (mostly), as in, if you embed the Facebook Like button (served with extensive tracking enabled), they know who has been to your site. And you can then try to target those users with ads.
Pretty much the only time I’ll use them is when the checkout form has a promo code field. I’ll check each of the social media profiles for something recent.
False dichotomy. Minimal is not the opposite of creative. On the contrary, working within constraints, such as the principle of minimalism, is a hallmark of creativity.
[+] [-] mathieuh|6 years ago|reply
GDS has this design standard which all apps looking to be certified (obtain a foo.gov.uk domain) must follow.
Of course, if whatever you’re working on requires you bend the rules some times as long as you are able to explain to the auditors how breaking the rule increases usability they will accroît if.
For example, the most recent GDS app I worked on (DfT roadworks are making an app that exposes all roadworks in GB so utility companies can collaborate and avoid digging the same hole days apart.
Our user research suggested that our users would much prefer a map (JavaScript) to a web form. We have a non-JS version but it I clearly a second citizen only there to meet the accessibility standard.
I love GDS, never have I used a group of websites where the user research is done so thoroughly that in many cases a fragmented sentence above the field is enough to explain what to do. They are pragmatic and quick to reply, only thing is they can be a bit optimistic (GOV Verify, GOV Pay, still don’t know what’s going on with their PaaS project) which left us in the lurch a bit on a previous project.
Ended up having to roll our own 2fa and using some Crapita gateway. There were so many reconciliations with this awful payment system that it basically became someone in finance’s full time job.
When Kwik-fit are buying 20,000 test slots per (day? Week? Can’t remember) you want to be sure you get if right or phones start ringing and front pages of Daily Mails start printing.
[+] [-] taneq|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hliyan|6 years ago|reply
There's a certain relief that comes from being able to focus entirely on content/task because the interface remains stubbornly minimalist.
[+] [-] alextingle|6 years ago|reply
No. Google's better search results were the primary reason they beat Lycos et al.
(Something that the Google search people seem to have now forgotten :-/ )
[+] [-] freshbagels|6 years ago|reply
Way to misdiagnose. It's wholly possible to have a UI that is both creative and easy to use.
Most of the bad UIs and UXs I've seen have been the result of a lack of critical thinking and/or user empathy.
[+] [-] hinkley|6 years ago|reply
When I was starting as a developer I got a lot of pushback on some of the creative things I did and ended up redirecting a lot of that energy to reliability concerns, including human factors issues (human errors cause bugs). At this point I take - and use - “clever” as an epithet.
[+] [-] anoncake|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overshard|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyberferret|6 years ago|reply
EDIT: Seems to be back up again now.
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Exuma|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|6 years ago|reply
Aside from that in a boring UI many UX mistakes can arise not from creativity but from lack of thought, or perhaps not being creative enough to solve a problem or even see it.
[+] [-] gitgud|6 years ago|reply
Without creativity, sites become bland unmemorable clones of each other...
[+] [-] dmix|6 years ago|reply
I find most designers go through two phases, starting out they are very free form and fancy-graphics-for-the-sake-of-graphics approach, mostly because they can, which is where all newbies start. Then they learn about usability/functional design after reading something like "Design of Everyday Things" [1] which does a great job of selling why the functional nature of the product matters first-and-foremost as much or more as the way it looks. This is the first step in being a good and useful designer.
But people don't realize that same author Don Norman released an equally important book called "Emotional Design" [2] which digs deeper into why something like an Apple product is not only easy-to-use but is designed in such that it melds into our life cleanly, it goes beyond just being a useful tool to where it becomes part of our identity and we treat it like a piece of art.
The mature designers learn that good design goes beyond merely simplifying a 5 click process down to 2 (for example), towards crafting something that creates an emotional connection with the people buying it. For example: sometimes adding an extra 3rd step which communicates information or eases anxiety in the user is more important than the lowest amount of clicks/time to action is completed.
Yet most usability-obsessed designs would dismiss this as unnecessary distraction when the immediate 'conversion' should be 100% the goal, instead of realizing the wider emotional experience that exists in these same processes. It's easy to get someone to click a red button over a black one for psychological reasons, but it takes good design to have it naturally flow as part of the goal in the users mind at the time, which helps create a solid long-term connection with the customer.
The type of relationship where people recommend your product to others, not just solving their problem quickly and forgetting it.
This is the more abstract and intuitive part of design that reaches beyond what the more scientific approach to usability and functional design can achieve by itself. That's were things like aesthetics, colour, copywriting, and the whole experience buying the product and interacting with the company comes in. The stuff that seems like excess in a totally functional perspective. This is what turns a product from merely more useful than the rest of the market into something that is coveted and sought-out by customers when they see the brand name or designer behind it. It's the attention to the details and experience of the humans using your product, not just robots greased to the credit card page the quickest.
Most software/hardware sucks at even getting the functional parts down, which is why it gets hyped up and valued so much - which is fine, that's where the lowest hanging fruit will remain. But that doesn't mean it stops there.
1. https://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expand...
2. https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things...
[+] [-] cdrini|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
I think design norms new media are the same. Why <blink>? Because we can.
[+] [-] hughpeters|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sendwithses|6 years ago|reply
We had to change it to the current design since a lot of users were fidgeting about the lack of 'more' content. We came to the conclusion UIUX is not something to be fixed but a matter of how comfortable your end users are.
[+] [-] anomaloustho|6 years ago|reply
This point might be shoehorning attractiveness into the usability of interfaces. I don’t know that “average” facial features are attractive because they “don’t make us think” in the same vein. Everything I’ve heard points to average facial features being attractive because they are indicative of diversified genetics. (which could provide an advantage against birth defects, vulnerability to viruses, and genetic disease)
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
I've never used these buttons, but I'm not a normal web user, so I'd love to know how much use they get. I'd bet less than one in 10,000 pageviews get a like button click.
[+] [-] llarsson|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbritton|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|6 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dehrmann|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] insickness|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cookie_monsta|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lostgame|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giongto35|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonny383|6 years ago|reply
Sorry, that didn’t work. Please try again or come back later. 500 Error. Internal Server Error.
Ah, the irony of the boring UI article title and the unhelpful error message I received.