The folks at 37signals churn out another enjoyable site. Design Not Found: The best and worst of contingency design is a set of examples of what some popular websites cough up when they get confused. In their words: “real-world examples of good and bad contingency design”.
It’s a good site and a good idea.
I do have a few nitpicks of my own about the site though:
- The featured review titles and graphics on the front page should be clickable.
- There should be a clearer link to the Snapshot Library on the front page – after all, this the bulk of the site.
- Why all the pop-up windows?! One window is enough for Google, so its good enough for you.
- Fixed-size fonts. If I have a visual disability, I can’t increase the size of the fonts. In their defence, they are not alone in this – but I think everyone is wrong.
Don’t get me wrong though. This is a great site and a great idea but someone has got the be the gadfly for the gadfly.
Semi-related questions for everyone:
Why are so many of the most impressively designed sites completely inscrutable?
Can websites work as entertainment or is the Web an informational medium?
Shameless, I know. π
Funny,. I was just thinking about this (honestly). In my usual mind, the web is entirely informational. For awhile when my computer was knocked out, I was using Lynx (a text-only dos’ish browser) and I thought it was great, I got a little utility which let me use the mouse in the text-only environment and I got the same information (only sometimes thrown away [MSN’s Hotmail, etc..]) that I wanted. Viewing WAP/PDA-Friendly versions of sites made a lot of sense, and got me everything I needed.
It was information, I was getting in and using the Web to get it.
Fast-Forward a month, I download shockwave and hit up shockwave.com to play some games, I enjoy some video on CNN.com and go into a Java-Chat room (well, hypothetical)… Bored on a Wednesday night and I look for entertainment.
The thing I notice is, I go to entertaining sites for entertainment and to the appropriate sites for information… The two seldom cross. I really don’t want cbc.ca to try to distract me with their design.
But I also don’t want to get bored. It’s important to present things to a user in a way that isnΒt just “pretty” but is also “captivates” to a degree. I know when I watch people browse around the web (freaky, I know,… but I do it sometime)… Their eyes really gloss over on a site, it is often on sites that don’t funnel a users focus…
The annoying effect of how the web has “evolved” is that users are generally comfortable with functionality/option based design. When a user is presented with a bunch of BS in the middle and a grouping of options on the left pane, they know what they need to do.
The thing I don’t understand is that if we walk into a companies lobby and state what we want, why don’t we try that on the web? Something I subscribe to, to an odd degree, are the Inductive User Interface guidelines which Microsoft is currently attempting to implement. If you’ve used Microsoft Money lately, then you’ve seen the IUI in action….
The main problem I see with traditional design methods (and more current ones), is the ignorance of the fact that a user does not become more accustomed to how they should complete a task, no matter how many times they have completed the task in the past. Microsoft’s Usability Labs outline this problem in several documents:
Hope I’m not too far off topic,. But where is the balance?
Wouldn’t sites like Acts of Volition count as both entertaining and informational?
At least in theory π
While MS Money is an intresting experiment in usablility and is probably good for lesser skilled computer users, i couldn’t help but be annoyed by the narration. It was always far too slow, and i could read all the options long before the narrator reached the end of its first sentance. But maybe you could turn it off. I never really explored much.
That said, task based UI is nifty, and it works really well in windows XP. It seems to make a lot more sense to the user, especially people who don’t already know the windows like the palm of their hand (sadly – me).
Also, that article Jevon links to is an intresting read if you can stomach it. They really rip apart older versions of money, and talk about how bad it used to be. Unusual to see a company rip into their own product so much. Mind you, its to promote their new one, but still, surprising in its frankness.
I agree Issac, the narration is major overkill, and doesn’t apply very much to web interface design.
Also, that article comes from their usability people, who have always done a good job of not promoting Microsoft’s own products. They don’t seem very swayed by corporate norms there, or so they say… It’d suck for a usability/UI group to just reinforce old practices.. π
FYI, we just added the ability to add comments to a snapshot.
Big props the crew at 37signals for some nice subtle revisions to the site. Almost all of my original criticisms have been addressed:
Check.
Done – with a nice prominent tab system that hightlights the already strong breadcrumb navigation.
All pop-ups are gone! The Internet is a better place for it. Nice solution puts all of the ‘about dnf’ content in context on one page.
I guess I can’t have it all – and they do the big guns behind them on this one. I continue to dissent. Here are some sites we’ve produced that used CSS for all fonts but are still resizeable in the browser: StarMaker.ca, Prism Digital.
Congrats to 37signals for the much deserved attention for what is now an even better site.