On 11 Jan 2007, at 14:30:05, Barney Carroll wrote:
Conceive of a persona who is not a read-up fan of Apple's UI
recommendations (my target audience, incidentally). Are they going
to hover their cursor over a button, see it turn into a hand, and
get baffled? I very much doubt it. In fact I think it would
elucidate the functionality of the button.
The point of being consistent is that the user notices nothing. As
Jakob Nielsen puts it, "Users spend most of their time on other
websites... This means that they form their expectations for your
site based on what's commonly done on most other sites. If you
deviate, your site will be harder to use." [1] The fact that it's a
button elucidates its functionality. If you need to offer additional
cues, you need to redesign your button.
The cursor, in my mind, has no bearing on this difference.
On the contrary, the cursor is a crucial element of the user
experience. If it starts behaving in ways other than expected, the
potential for confusion is there.
I don't think I'm flippant in thinking that this is standardisation
gone mad - it is at the point where designing no longer requires
insight or creativity, and simply demands mechanical processing
according to ancient presets without analysis.
Please don't take this personally (it so happens it's one of my
bugbears, and I tend to start ranting when it comes up) but one of
the worst problems on the web is graphic designers who think that
their "vision" or "creativity" or whatever overrides the need for
usability. Graphic design for the web (or, indeed, anywhere) must
always be subordinate to usability; great graphic design recognises
this, and actually enhances usability, as well as being aesthetically
pleasing.
As for "ancient presets": Apple carried out several years of regular
user testing in the process of designing the Mac user interface [2].
They still do this, and the default cursor behaviour is one of the
things they have found no reason to change. The expression "If it
ain't broke, don't fix it" is often used inappropriately (as Kent
Beck's grandmother says, "If it stinks, change it" [3]) but in this
case I don't believe anything is broken, and you are solving a
problem that doesn't exist.
Kind regards,
Nick.
[1] <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html>
[2] <http://folklore.org/StoryView.py?
project=Macintosh&story=Do_It.txt&topic=User%
20Interface&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium>
[3] Quoted in the book "Refactoring: Improving the design of existing
code" by Martin Fowler et al. <http://www.amazon.co.uk/Refactoring-
Improving-Design-Existing-Technology/dp/0201485672/sr=8-1/
qid=1168528154/ref=pd_ka_1/026-4118605-6022024?ie=UTF8&s=books>
--
Nick Fitzsimons
http://www.nickfitz.co.uk/
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