[IxDA Discuss] Complexity, learnability, efficiency... (WAS: Common design mista kes?)

[Sherman, Paul]

[Cindy said]:

Their designs are innovative but sometimes complex. For example, we are
debating a design that a designer came up recently: a dropdown list that
contains checkboxes, OK, Cancel, Clear, Close buttons for a simple search
function.

---
The main product my team supports uses this type of design *everywhere*.
(Sans checkboxes though...) Most people on the UCD team - including me -
were new to the product; I formed this team in January of last year. Us
newbies invariably had the same reaction the first time we saw this
overloaded drop-down: 

"Yuck! What the bleep is *that* monstrosity?!?!"

It was the most non-standard thing we'd ever seen. 

Fortunately, we resisted the urge to force a redesign on the organization.
When we started utesting the product with the installed base and new users,
we realized a few things: 

-Yes, it was complex. But new users, after their initial confusion, quickly
got the hang of it.
-It was efficient. Installed base users had mastered the control, and relied
on it to speed up frequent operations. (To set context, users are typically
working within the product for 2-10 hours per work week.)

As hideous as it seemed at first, we had to admit that the design worked. It
made the appropriate tradeoff between learnability (a bit low) and
efficiency (way high). 

Just thought I'd share. 

 
Paul


--
Paul Sherman
Director, User-Centered Design
Sage Software