Fewer templates, more user experience
One of the things that needs to change in 2006 (which will undoubtedly be the year of the web-application) is the care for user experience and usability. Many managers and business-people need to change their perspective and hire the right people to take their web-businesses to a new level. We are no longer in 1999, age of Photoshop-designed templates and lens flare effects on homepages, cut into place in Dreamweaver MX.
We’ve been getting quite a few work proposals in the last few weeks – which you’d say is by any standards, a good thing. But the percentage of people (even on very high places) who have no clear notion of how user-centered design and information architecture should work for their company and websites is astonishing.
It’s almost 2006, let’s talk 2006
I’ve said this before, but I’ll repeat: “The key to successful web applications is how much it puts the user in the center of the process”. What this means is that any design, for any webpage or web-application needs to take into consideration the user, not the looks.
The notion that a page needs to be pixel perfect before usability snaps into the process is wrong. Usability, user experience and information architecture need to be present from the start of development and design. This means that if you’re looking for people to send you “3 photoshop templates” of pages, you’re driving steady against the wall of “bad investment”.
Remember the rule: “The key to successful web applications is how much it puts the user in the center of the process”.
If you really want a web-based business,
If you really want a web-based business, your request shouldn’t be for “templates” or “layouts”. Your question should be “how can I make my users/readers come back for more of what I’m offering?”. That’s the question we like to answer. The reason why is simple – there’s basically two schools of web-designers and developers:
- Those that do webpages by thinking about color schemes, pixel-perfect placement of headers, titles and images. They get your job done if your page is a visit-once endeavour (in which case, you don’t really have a web business). They do not get the job done if you need to make sense to your users and readers. A web-application (or a blog) is not a concert-night poster.
- Those that want to know your business and your users first, consider all the aspects, and then implement them (even with all the bells and whistles the first kind of designer would get you). This is the right kind of people you want if you are building something for everyone. Someone (or a team) or knows engineering and breathes it into the design. People with people skills and talent.
So is there a ROI in user experience?
Short answer is a resounding “yes”. You can see clearly that the web-applications that succeed are the ones that had a budget for user experience and information architecture. Does it cost them? Usually, yes – sometimes even more than the development itself. But the difference between an application that people use from one that people don’t bother with, relies in 99% of the cases on how well information is structured and how intuitive it is – not how the code works.
Conclusion
If you manage a web-application or a web-based business and are thinking about a new look, don’t think color schemes – or hire people that think about color schemes and layouts. Think about the best ways to make what you do clear to your visitors – and hire people accordingly. It might become one of your best decisions.
True.
There are a lot of people that still dont understand basic notions of usability, and prefer to see a shiny-graphic-filled website than a more simpler one that focus on user experience that leads to more time online.
What can we do to “enlight” them? Theres a need to make them understand that a website or a web-app that is built to fit the users need is better than the usual pretty type.
I am definitely not an example because my website still holds a photoshoped layout and a lot of acessibility problems, but i hope that in the future i can change that.
Lets hope that people start noticing the changes on the web and the way people use it.
[...] WeBreakStuff » Less templates, more user experience Where to focus your Web design. (tags: webdesign links) [...]
Fewer templates. Fewer, not less.
Thank you for the wonderful post,
you can be sure that I will implement exactly what you are saying.
[...] Working with the right people (remember I’ve written about hiring the right people a couple of days ago) means trust, and trust is a complicated thing to go around and give everyone. However, bare with me, we’re talking about the right people – the genius (or geniuses) you just added to your team to bring your project to a whole new level. Those guys, you should trust. [...]
[...] La gente de WeBreakStuff escribe un interesante artÃÂculo sobre el enfoque del diseño web: Fewer templates, more user experience. [...]
{create a feel-at-home sense}
well, talking about managing trust. Yes, a dilema. Many think its a natural born thing, but the “basics” can_be_learned. I think i understand the trust you are refering to, as in a more almost poethical/romantic style: the questiona is -> it can be possible! Not allways, but sometimes. And when it happens, good things are brought to life. A trust in a result_driven sense. A little more trust may take us to a creative_result_sense. The sometimes small gap may be the diference.
Not only one or two variables are involved in web-app creation. The core function of the app helps define user-experience. Some apps (web or not) will even never provide user-experience due to the object of their existance/function. But on those that can, centering the user, defining clear ways to his navigation, provide good usability, making him understand the (try always simple) rules, create a feel-at-home sense is key to sucess.
Look to a web-app as an equation is important: the result should be true. Given the user input variables, wich consists on clicking, scrolling, searching, typing, accepting, canceling, adding, removing, changing, etc, when leaving the site the sense of frustation is a killer.
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[...] Fred Oliveira: Fewer templates, more user experience (good advice on design and usability) [...]
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[...] If a web product or service requires a conversation prior to its use, chances are it wasn’t designed with the user in mind. Frederico Oliveira, a design expert, puts it as follows: Usability, user experience and information architecture need to be present from the start of development and design. [...]
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[...] …said a wise man a few weeks ago. Well, some webdesigners don’t seem to think that this is the key to success. Today I wanted to look for a flight to the US or to London, or wherever, with Austrian Airlines. I really didn’t bother about the date, it just had to be cheap. So far so good. Nice design (they are still using tables, but okay, I can live with that). It even looks easy to search for a flight, but trust me, it really isn’t. [...]
You hit the nail on the head. If it were only easier to assign a value to the user experience as easy as it is to your typical conversions. Build for the user and the viral marketing that occurs through time will build more value than any single design driven decision you can make.
It’s true that most companies are clueless about the rich harvest they can get from early user research & user-centered design. I had the experience of working on a usability job with a major brand, helping test their pilot web application with internal users. It seemed more a formality like, you know, we need to get in a usability consultant to quiet some discontent here, so lets get them in for a 2 week stint. Now, 2 weeks are great for a smallish website, but this was a pretty complex & large web application. The rush-rush job ensured that only the bare surface was skimmed, which suited the company: they didn’t want to hear what was wrong with an application they had developed for the past year or more!