[IxDA Discuss] Common design mistakes?

[LukeW]

Hi Jenifer, Here's some of the common issues I encounter:

1. Too often, everything on a Web page looks the same and users don’t  
know where to start. Conversely, everything looks very different and  
users end up bouncing between elements that are competing for their  
attention. An effective hierarchy employs just enough meaningful  
differentiation to walk users through the unique content and actions  
on a page in a purposeful order. Personally, when I design a site, my  
first iteration is often quite heavy graphically. As I put together  
the visual hierarchy, I end up with more unique visual treatments  
than the design actually needs. At that point, it’s a good idea to  
work through the elements on the page again and bring more visual  
consistency to related elements.
2. It’s also very valuable to look at the visual design from the  
perspective of what is absolutely necessary to communicate. Do you  
really need a different background, font size, font color, and drop  
shadow to distinguish that content? Would just a background color  
suffice? A common tendency I see is over designing, such as employing  
too many different colors and too many different graphic elements,  
which ultimately result in visual noise or just design-for-design’s  
sake.

3. Junior designers rarely frame their solutions in the context of  
the problem they are trying to solve and instead just jump right into  
presenting mock-ups. By first outlining the problem definition,  
designers can focus stakeholder feedback on how well the design  
addresses their goals. If the proper high-level definition is not  
present to provide context, feedback can quickly turn into a critique  
of the mockup not the solution. After all, it’s much easier to have  
an opinion on font sizes and color choices than on the right  
strategic positioning of an important product.

4. Junior designers often come overloaded with mock-ups. Whenever a  
designer (be it an interaction designer, an information designer, or  
a visual designer) presents a client with too many options instead of  
a clear recommendation, they risk undermining their value and opening  
themselves up to “design by committee”. The message is “I don’t know  
enough about your users or goals so you pick what works best.” Now  
the design is in a non-designer’s hands (who may very well be  
wondering why he hired a designer in the first place).



On Aug 14, 2006, at 8:05 AM, Jenifer Tidwell wrote:

> I'm thinking of mistakes like these:
>
> * Inability to use visual hierarchy to properly structure a page.
> * Poor use of alignment, grouping, and whitespace, leading to a page
> that's easy to misread.
> * Content-thin pages, requiring too many clicks to get something done.
> * Not anticipating user goofs, thus requiring users to reenter
> information or otherwise repeat themselves.
> * Thoroughly gratuitous -- and irritating -- use of animation.


::
::    Luke Wroblewski -[ www.lukew.com ]
::    Principal, LukeW Interface Designs
::    luke at lukew.com  |  408.879.9826
::