Comments on: Making User Interface Elements Difficult to Use By Intent

By: Shauna

Shauna — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 02:48:42 +0000

I actually kind of liked the Word counter-example. Even if Word starts on the Home ribbon (which someone pointed out), a lot of useful/important things are the same size. I’ve also found that people who are used to the older versions have a harder time transitioning, because they’re used to the old style. Users have gained various associations with the menus they had, and it tended to be difficult to unlearn that behavior. It didn’t help that while the ribbon is arguably an improvement, for reasons stated in previous comments, Microsoft kind of missed the mark, particularly with Word. Power Point is better, and from what I’ve seen and heard, Office 2010 is better still, so at least they’re learning from their mistakes.

By: Kim Burgess

Kim Burgess — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 22:05:11 +0000

Nice article.

There was an additional reason that was omitted from the article – in some (limited) circumstances reducing the usability of a control can provide just enough cognitive overhead to make the interaction enjoyable. Take for example the ‘time wheels’ in Apple’s iOS. From a usability standpoint they are far from efficient, however, they add just enough interaction to make a trivial, boring task (setting a time/date/alarm) almost bearable.

By: Matthew Wehrly

Matthew Wehrly — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:28:36 +0000

Jacob, this was a great read! I think a lot of the points you have made are valid. Although I agree, the Microsoft Word 2007 ribbon could use more improvement, I think it was a step in the right direction. In many cases, the more the software can do, the muddier the UI gets. A lot of times, it is just the developer/designer trying to provide the user with all of the options in the fewest clicks. Whether that is a good thing or not, I don’t know. Thanks again for the article.

By: Shane

Shane — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 08:47:48 +0000

This was a great article Jacob!!! Very interesting and really got your points across with minimal content!!

Keep up the good work!!

By: David

David — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 08:23:31 +0000

Really interesting article Jacob. Its good to understand the design decisions on websites like Basecamp, clearly at the top of their game with the design and usability. Articles like this help us all improve the way we go about designing interfaces.

By: desinerd

desinerd — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:03:29 +0000

I disagree about Microsoft Word example your explained above. Your argument would have been valid if Word launched on the Page Layout tab each time. Word always starts on the Home tab which only has the most commonly used buttons and menus (font, size, bold, italics, heading etc.)

Not only that, with the new ribbon interface, my Word documents are more semantic now. I use “Heading 1″ style when I create a level 1 heading (instead of increasing the font size and making it bold), just like I would use tag and not .heading class in HTML. I never used to do that with Word 2003. I have found so many new features which even though existed in 2003 but were unknown to be because of the multi-level menus.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:12:37 +0000

Nice article, Jacob. We’re tussling over the large and probably costly redesign for the History Commons; your article provides some excellent fodder for our decisions.

By: Robert

Robert — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 09:36:04 +0000

hi jacob, nice well written article as always, very informative and well researched

but i have to disagree with you about the office 2007 counter-example
In my opinion microsoft as rarely as it is did a great job with ui in the office suit, in the odler versions you had to navigate through up to 4 menus to reach an action; with the tabbed bar you are there with on click. Esspecially for newbies i think it is way easier to navigate than in the old versions where you searched for 5 minutes to find a function and couldn’t remeber where it was the next time you needed it.
Besides that you forgot to mention another great feature the quick access bar next to the menu logo where you can put almost every command that exists in the program.
About the Acrobat Tab you just have to check the options for add-ins and disable it ^^, well word doesn’t ask but who would expect that ;D
So I like the navigation and were pretty quick familiar with it.

Keep up the great work on six revisions
Robert S.

By: sarfraz raza

sarfraz raza — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 05:51:25 +0000

Excellent collection , really inspiring ideas about typography logo designs.

By: john

john — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 22:52:06 +0000

I can think of a 4th reason, illustrated by two every-day live things:
1. In the NL most supermarkets have a designated path. You can not walk to the cash register directly.
2. Smart mail-order catalogs do not have an index.
Why? The owners want you to see everything, walk through the shop or browse through the catalog so you’ll see all the items they sell. Advertising.