On 10.2.2010, at 9.01, Gabor Vida wrote: > I'm opposed to the idea. I don't like forcing my users to hunt and > peck around an application to learn what it does. The "they only > have to find it once" belief feels like a crutch. An elegantly > designed interface can be both immediately usable and pleasing to > look at. One shouldn't be sacrificed for the other.
Forcing people to search for a Send or Get Mail button in their email client is obviously bad design. It would also be bad design, if PowerPoint's "Start Presentation" button was hidden between some random icons in some random corner. Oh, wait... Anyway, there are special cases where completely hiding the action button works. Safari's tabs are a fine example: making the "close tab" icons visible at all times would just add unnecessary visual clutter. Many web apps hide delete buttons when editing lists, until you hover over the line. At first they may show only a pen icon for Edit, but a mouseover reveals more functionality. iPhone's Mail.app has a shortcut to reveal a hidden Delete button with a gesture, without clicking Edit and tapping a selection first. Note that the app also has an explicit Edit button. My rule of thumb: If it's safe to expect that users will look for functionality in the location of the "hidden" button, and they will use it early and often, and having the button visible would cause a lot of visual clutter through repetition, then I might dim or hide it. One way to reduce clutter is to use the most invisible color contrast that still reveals the button's location. An eye doesn't need much hint to find a button, assuming that it's already looking for one. If you're unsure, make an A/B usability test with an interactive prototype and try it out. It's not a lot of code to hide the button after the test, if people find it without showing it. Cheers, Petteri -- Petteri Hiisilä Senior Interaction Designer, owner / iXDesign Mobile: 408-256-0430 (USA), +358505050123 (FIN) Twitter: http://twitter.com/petterihiisila LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/petterihiisila ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
