The Handy Dandy Kitchen Helper : Site of the Future!

User Experience December 04, 2007

Ah, the Honeymooners. And ah, multi-faceted websites. I wish that someone would invent a household utensil that would do the work of all of these (said, of course, in the Art Carney accent).

Ever find yourself staring at an application that has virtually no functionality and a completely overcomplicated interface to cover it up? You look at it and say "ooh pretty" and then realize "wait, what does it do?"

Conversely, you may find yourself at one that has such complex functionality that it's impossible to figure out where to start!

Well it would appear we have two problems:

Minimal Functionality

If you're thinking about making an application and you're focused too much on the interface at first, that's a problem. Make sure you've got your functionality down before pretty-ing everything up. Why are people using your product? What do you have to offer? If you can't think of something useful, then perchance you need to do something else.

Build useful functionality and then a usable interface on top of it. Don't get these switched. The best interfaces come when the functionality is clear and uncluttered by interface design.

Extreme Functionality

If you've thought long and hard about what your application can do and have implemented all the functionality, that's great. This is a fantastic opportunity to develop a nice interface because you already have the core of your product designed.

From here, you need to figure out what aspects of the product are most important and design the interface around that. Do not overclutter. Try a version that has as little as possible. Then sit with it for a while and see if it makes sense to add more components. Don't go drawing all over the whiteboard with graphic ideas to make the site pretty.

It's all about process. The user will use the application in steps and you should design in steps too. When you get it down, as Ralph Kramden says, "Alice, that's big, big, big! This is probably the biggest thing I ever got into."


...and then Alice says "The biggest thing you ever got into was your pants."

Other User Experience Posts