Being both a web developer and application developer gives one a unique perspective on the general design of web, something that most designers rarely appreciate. During my Software Engineering studies I spent a lot of time studying the concept of User Interfaces. Most of that time we were guided back to the simple question of just how a user interacts with the application.

You can see practical examples of this research in todays applications. Most windows applications have a menu at the top that generally have several menu options, including File, Edit, View, etc (as in the image below). You may not have ever used an application before, but because of the consistency of this user interface design across the different applications, you are able to feel a sense of familiarity that allows you to use the application.

The concept isn’t anything particular to software. All cars are different, yet we are able to step into any one of them and be familiar with how it works because of the standardisation of vehicle user interfaces. Over time, interface design evolves, and with it the user’s perception and understanding of how they interact with these interfaces evolve as well.

So it gave me great sadness today to work on another website where the deisgner has once again missed the basic principles. When building websites I have a very close relationship with the designer, as the fate of the final product is in both our hands. Today’s website was no different, and unfortunately even though the end product will look nice, it will undoubtably be less usable as a consequence of its design.

An example of this is the alignment of the scroll bar. Have you ever used an application that has a scroll bar on the left hand side of an object. I can’t ever remember using one. Yet the designer has deliberately made the page function with a scroll bar positioned in a completely non sensible position, which could ultimately confuse the user.

Another example of confusing design is the request for the menu to automatically expand more options vertically when hovering over sub menu items. This may sound simple, but if you were to move over a menu item in Windows and sub menu items appeared vertically inline, it would be quite confusing. There would be no indication that it works this way (i.e. displaying arrows to point out hidden content) and it would also make it technically impossible to click the second heading, as if you moved over it the first subsection would disappear and the whole menu would be in a different location.

 

Another issue with this website is that it was designed too large to fit on most peoples’ computer screens (in fact 62% of all users). Imagine if a furniture store made couches that couldn’t fit through your front door. I doubt they would be selling many at all.

Seemingly simple design issues do not bother those who use a computer on a daily basis, but its the limiting factor in taking computing to the masses. I often question who the target audience for these products, and more often than not it is someone who has limited understanding of a computer. These people suffer the most at the hand of rogue designers. What makes it worse is that I work with a range of designers, and it isn’t just the new ones that fall into this trap. The most experienced designers make the same mistakes, and it makes me question whether they think through their design as much as they tell say to their clients.

Ughhh….