Tag - simplicity

ZDnet blogs: asking for your life history on the first date

May 24, 2006
John Koetsier
news

I occasionally run across an interesting post on ZDNet blogs, and today I wanted to post a comment to one … until I saw the registration form.

Most blogs want just 3 pieces of information from you in order to post:

  1. your name
  2. your email address
  3. your website address, if you have one

That’s it. Finished. Now you can post your comment.

That’s fairly simple, and adds very little friction to contributing to a conversation on someone else’s blog.

However, on ZDNet blogs, there are 22 separate fields or pieces of information they ask you to fill out! Unsurprisingly, most of their blogs generate only a few comments.

I understand ZDNet wants to enhance their relationship with readers (and possibly generate more revenue per visitor) but this is insane. In case anyone’s listening at ZDNet, here’s a good way to enhance my relationship with you:

Make it easy for me to begin a relationship.

Here’s ZDNet’s sign-up form:

[tags] ZDNet, blogs, comments, conversations, signups, friction [/tags]

Simplicity test

May 19, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Both of these companies say they’ll make your life simpler. They both make software for managing business processes, among other things.

Which one do you believe?

iRadeon go to iRadeon

37 Signals go to 37 Signals

Which one do you believe? And what does this tale of two screenshots say about your website?

[tags] simplicity, webdesign, web 2.0, 37 signals, iRadeon [/tags]

Kill the reset button in HTML forms

May 16, 2006
John Koetsier
news

In this age of user-centric design, the HTML reset button is past its useful lifespan.

I reached this important and passionate conclusion only after getting bitten in the ass by a reset button today. That’s the offending form, above, and there is that unnecessary Reset button that I clicked.

The reset button serves one function, and one function only: it clears all data from the form. Under what circumstances does the user need that fuction?

First scenario: fill & submit
In the first use-case, someone fills out a form and submits it. The reset button is not needed.

Second scenario: fill, error, submit
Or, someone could fill out a form, realize that they’ve made an error, and need to go back and correct it. The likelihood that every field is incorrect is extremely low … so again, the reset button is interface cruft.

Third scenario: fill, change mind
Finally, someone could fill out a form online, then decide that they don’t want to submit it after all. Well, all they need to do is leave the page. Click through to somewhere else, or close the browser. Once again, the reset button is unneeded.

Unneeded, but dangerous too
Not only is the reset button not needed, it’s dangerous.

Like me not paying proper attention today, some users will fill out forms, attempt to submit them, and accidently hit the wrong button. The consequences of this user action are instant, severe, and irrevocable.

All the data you entered (2-5 minutes of work, depending on the number of form items) is gone instantly, without a did-you-really-mean-to-press-that-button. And there’s no undo command that will recover the data. So the only recourse is to re-type the data. (Or give up and just leave.)

Why? Why? Why?
One good way of improving any process is asking why again and again – even about mundane elements that everyone just takes for granted.

If the above is true – and I’m not overlooking some important purpose – the Reset button on web forms is not only largely useless, it’s potentially dangerous both to the user and to the website proprietor who wants to hear from visitors/clients.

So why is it still there? Why do so many web forms – probably the vast majority of them – still have a Reset button?

For geeks only
Could it be that the Reset button’s major purpose in life is developer debugging during the web development process?

While building a site or a form functionality on a site, a developer will submit data to a form multiple times to ensure that all fields are working as they ought, all data is being saved correctly to the database, and an appropriate thank you page follows successful submission of the form. (Not to mention security testing, buffer overflow testing, etc. etc.)

During this process, it’s very helpful to have a reset button to change the data, wipe out data that is auto-completing because your browser is set up to auto-fill certain fields, and so on. So it makes sense to include a Reset button.

And that’s the only purpose I can think of for the Reset button. Which means it’s time to get rid of it.

That will simply your interface while reducing the possibility of user error … all while not taking an iota of functionality away from your visitors.

Slam dunk!

[tags] html web webdesign websites forms reset buttons [/tags]

iPod Hi-Fi that doesn’t suck

May 12, 2006
John Koetsier
news

This is what iPod hi-fi should have been:

Compare that to Apple’s iPod HiFi:

There’s no comparison. Minimalist design can be only so minimalist before it starves to a sad, pitiful, weak little end. And that’s what Apple’s iPod HiFi does, in my opinion.

See more at Geneva’s site. Note that you can actually play CDs in the system … and that it includes an FM tuner.

The stand is just amazing … I have a wonderful Harman Kardon system with Bose speakers, but I’m smacking my lips just thinking about it.

It’s the whole package that makes the Geneva system so much more compelling to me. iPods, CDs, radio: everything I might want to listen to. Apple’s iPod HiFi just isn’t a big enough solution … maybe it’s just too simple.

[tags] ipod, ipod hifi, hifi, home stereo, simplicity, design [/tags]

A winning formula for successful communication

May 10, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Clarity is hard.

I know – I’ve tried and failed. Pair brevity with clarity and it’s even harder – twice as hard.

But if you want to be successful in almost anything that requires communication – any business, any marketing, any resume – you need to master clarity. And when you combine it with brevity and a pinch of originality, you’ll be able to successfully communicate your message.

I was reminded of this today when I visited an education software company’s website today, and was confronted with this paragraph on the home page:

SUNGARD Pentamation is an application software and information processing services company whose sole focus is to provide administrative information systems, performance analysis and reporting software solutions to the K-12 and Local Government markets throughout the United States. We at SUNGARD Pentamation are proud of our products, services and commitment to the markets we serve. We invite and encourage you to thoroughly explore our Web site in order to gain an insight as to who we are …

What the heck do they actually do?

I’ll tell you, I spent a few minutes wondering. But that’s only because I’m doing some research on software companies in education. If I was actually an educator looking for a software package, I’d be gone in 15 seconds.

I don’t want to thoroughly explore your website to get an insight into who you are … just tell me! In a sentence! That doesn’t include the word solution!

I’ve come to believe that the word solution is code for “I don’t really know what on earth we actually do either. But we help people with, um, problems, and, like, kind of fix them or something like that. So we provide solutions!”

If you can’t explain what you do simply and clearly in a few short words, one or more of the following are true:

  1. you don’t actually know
  2. you have no clear focus
  3. you really aren’t sure why clients pay you money because you don’t really know what problems your “solutions” solve
  4. you haven’t thought long and hard enough about it yet

Contrast the above essay-in-a-paragraph with how 37Signals presents itself:

Simple software to help you get organized.

There you have it. They build and sell software. It’s software that helps you get organized. And it’s simple.

That’s clear, brief, and even refreshingly original.

A winning formula for successful communication: Clarity. Brevity. Originality.

. . .
. . .

[tags] communication, clarity, brevity, originality, marketing, business 2.0, [/tags]

Boring

May 10, 2006
John Koetsier
news

“The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out.”

— Voltaire

(Inspired by this story on why less is more in advertising).

It follows, then, that to be interesting, you have to leave some parts out. And, probably, the best way to be the most interesting is to know exactly which parts to leave out at which times.

Food for thought!

. . .
. . .

[tags] marketing, quotes, voltaire, boring, business 2.0 [/tags]

The law of unintended consequences

May 3, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Why, why, why is it that so often we generate exactly the opposite of what we want?

  1. Americans spend more on health than any other nation in the world, but they’re among the sickest (reference).
  2. Americans spend about $46 billion on diets, diet drugs, and associated programs … but they’re the fattest nation in the world (reference).
  3. Hockey players have never had better padding, helmets, and protection, but head injuries are on the rise (reference, reference).

Other examples are available at Wikipedia: prohibition in the US driving the growth of organized crime; the introduction of rabbits in Australia for “sport shooting” lead to them becoming ubiquitous pests …

Those are relatively straightforward examples, however. Trying to get accomplish X, in those cases, resulted in Y. Whereas in the first examples I mentioned, trying to accomplish not X, resulted in X. And not just X, more X. And even more X!

Weird.

I think you can put it down to focusing on the wrong thing.

Being so focused on creating better equipment to protect the hockey player wearing the equipment, manufacturers armored us with hard molded plastic. Guess what happens when you hit someone in the head with hard molded plastic at 30 kph? Particularly when there’s 200 lbs of nasty rink rat behind it.

Being so focused on losing weight, people buy a million products, diets, pills, and programs … but forget that losing weight is not a goal but a byproduct – of healthy living, reasonable food intake, and regular exercise.

Being so focused on health, people buy a million … wait … I said that already. Ditto previous paragraph.

Sometimes the goal is not the goal.

Tutorial on web search (!!!)

April 28, 2006
John Koetsier
news

While I was doing some education/technology research today, I ran across a tutorial for Finding Information on the Internet.

9 major sections, 5-6 subsections, and a whole page of “things you need to know before starting.”

I find it incredibly how educators can be so incredibly … ummm … how can I say “stupid” nicely? They seem to think that learning something requires exhaustive dissection of the thing to be learned, categorization, and step-by-careful-linear-step progression through a series of stages.

How adult of them.

Here’s my tutorial on web search:

  1. Go to Google
  2. Type something and hit enter
  3. That’s it

Oh, there’s more to learn. And people learn more as they go. And there’s different places to find different kinds of information.

But the key is starting, and learning while you are doing. Why don’t teachers see that?

Sidewalk: cool, simple forms

April 26, 2006
John Koetsier
news

This is a test of Sidewalk. Sidewalk lets you create web forms very, very simply, and stick them on your website without any application development whatsoever – and very little technical ability or knowledge at all.

Here’s my first test … tell me something that’s cool:

The best thing about this is not that anyone can do it. (OK, maybe it is.)

But the second best thing is that I don’t have to get a developer to build something. Two minutes with this tool saves me getting a developer to build something … and saves that developer an hour of his time.

The other reason that this kind of service is really, really important, is that every company or group that has a website occasionally has the need for some totally out-of-the-box wild blue-sky widget on their site. The CEO wants to check if people who buy green widgets like salted herring, or something like that.

Well, in a traditional development world, that’s somehow got to be fit into a site or application data model. It never will. And it never should.

And now, it never has to.

Credit:
I saw it first on Emily Chang’s eHub blog.

[ update May 1 ]

Two other players in a similar space: Wyacracker, and The Form Assembly. Cool thing about Form Assembly is that you can also do file uploads.

Simple technology

April 18, 2006
John Koetsier
news

Sorry for the oxymoron in the title. I know simple technology is almost a contradiction in terms, but … I saw the below quote at Andrew McAfee’s blog, and I’ve been turning them over in my mind ever since:

Wikis were invented by Ward Cunningham, whose most frequently-repeated quote is “What’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?”

That’s a powerful thought: what’s the simplest thing that could possibly work?

I’m guessing that just about any project could benefit from that question being asked a dozen or so times at each stage. I know my past projects would have.

. . .
. . .

By the way, Here’s an interview with Cunningham on how and why he developed Wikis.

Subscribe to my Substack