NEWS FLASH! Clicking in a Website Isn’t Evil!

An awesome article on UX Booth explaining that usability isn’t tied to how many times you click, but to how simple the click choices are to make. Long live simple interfaces!

Stop Counting Clicks!

Eye Candy Rocks

Some web pundits, most notably Jakob Nielson (who I refuse to link to), claim that design impedes usability. This is frequently rolled out as an excuse for ugly ass websites which work despite their visual shortcomings (Myspace anyone?). Reminds me of when the first band I was ever in would say, “We play this cover song, but we play it our way because we don’t want to just play it like the original.” Truth was, we couldn’t have played it like the original if our lives depended upon it. I suspect something similar is true when I hear someone say that they know their site is ugly, but boy do they get good ranking on Google. Truth is, their site doesn’t have to be ugly… they just don’t have the design skills to make it look nice.

Below is an article that points to studies that show that design does matter. According to the studies cited in the article attractively designed things just plain work better. I love it.

In defense of eye candy.

More is Rarely Better

Daring Fireball has linked to a screenshot of Micro$ofts’ Office 2010. It’s a hideous confusing mess of a UI that defies description. Check out the icons in the upper left hand corner… first, can you believe M$ is still using a floppy disk icon as the shortcut to “save?” And what’s with four different types of arrows up there?

More is rarely better folks. Take a look at this interface and ask yourself if you can imagine trying to get something done with it.

Office 2010 Screenshot

Call To Action Button Tips

I’ve discovered an awesome usability-centric website while surfing Smashing Magazine. The site is the UX Booth and it focuses squarely on designing more usable web pages. 

The article below has a bunch of useful tips on creating effective call to action buttons. 

Call to Action Buttons