Simian Design

June 24, 2003

The Challenges for UI Designers

Brian Krause has written an interesting article for Boxes and Arrows entitled “Boxes and Arrows: Ten Quotable Moments: Challenges and Responses for UI Designers”. This article deals with things that clients has said, and common reactions to the design process in building software. Generally I've found that you encounter these challenges in meetings, and stand alone when making your case. Topics include the following, and also help out with the situation, the interpertation, the real issue at hand and, most importantly, the response. # What they say: “Instead of arguing about it, let's just make it an option.” # What they say: “Look, I don't want to control every last detail, just this one. You can put the buttons wherever you want.” # What they say: “All we have to do is pop up a dialog box and ask the user.” # What they say: “Don't you want a list of all the error cases?” # What they say: “That's not how eBay does it!” # What they say: “I don't think it's confusing.” # What they say: “Dumb it downóthese aren't very sophisticated people we're dealing with.” # What they say: “We have to force them to, in as friendly a way as possible.” # What they say: “You and that Nielsen guy donít think websites should be any fun!” # What they say: “Can't we make it red so it stands out more?”

Whenever you come into an already established team, you will find preconceptions to confront. Even though there may be no interface yet, people have already imagined what it might be like, by analogy with other products if nothing else. To some people, there is only one way to build the interface, and anything else wonít be obvious to users since it wasn't obvious to the developers. Thatís one source of resistance to a designerís ideas.

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Tagged As Big Ideas, Strategy, UI Design, Usability

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Posted at 08:53 AM