/TECH
Over the summer I participated in a program here at work to journal every day and/or complete a project of some kind. At the end, the person that did the best would get a prize of some kind. But at the end of the summer when we all got together to share our summer progress, there were only six people that participated, including the organizer. Since there were so few of us, she decided that everyone would get a prize by choosing a book that she would order. She had several books laid out as options but she also said we could choose a different book of our own choosing. I requested the book Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug, unless it was too expensive in which I'd have a different book called 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer. Asking if I'd mind used books--which I don't--our organizer actually obtained both books for me. So awesome.
So last Friday they turned up on my desk and I proceeded to start reading Don't Make Me Think. It's a book on web usability and the basic premise is that as a user, we shouldn't have to think about where things are, what something is, or how to use it when browsing the Web. I obtained the book on a recommendation from a friend for the purpose of personal learning. As it turns out, it has also been helping me rethink how I design our custom web forms in SharePoint. And at a very opportune moment.
For some reason a form that worked quite well last academic year is pitching a fit this semester and causing students, faculty, and staff all sorts of problems. I mean lots of problems. We have had at least 4 problems a week with user access, usage, or otherwise on a process that's had a mere 50 applications submitted thus far. And when I started reading this book we had been considering expanding the instructions further to hopefully eliminate some of the confusion. More text was exactly the wrong thing, according to Steve Krug. But redesigning the form would be even worse as it would change it mid-process for many people. So rather than putting in more text or significantly altering the appearance, I found small tweaks like just disabling buttons instead of hiding them to do instead. I don't know if it has helped yet, but here's to hoping.
Steve's book doesn't just apply to web usability though. It really applies to any GUI design whether it's web, stand-alone applications, or operating systems. I know that everything doesn't fit within the bounds of the guidelines he sets, but even he admits that everything fits nicely into it. In fact the book isn't a step-by-step guide to making particular things, but rather a set of (not-so) common sense suggestions.
I haven't even finished reading the book and I've already been able to improve so much of the designs that I think of. With the resurrection of my D&D character tracker project on the horizon, having a common sense approach to design will drastically improve the usability of the web app.
Until next time:
Work hard. Play harder.
Over the summer I participated in a program here at work to journal every day and/or complete a project of some kind. At the end, the person that did the best would get a prize of some kind. But at the end of the summer when we all got together to share our summer progress, there were only six people that participated, including the organizer. Since there were so few of us, she decided that everyone would get a prize by choosing a book that she would order. She had several books laid out as options but she also said we could choose a different book of our own choosing. I requested the book Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug, unless it was too expensive in which I'd have a different book called 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer. Asking if I'd mind used books--which I don't--our organizer actually obtained both books for me. So awesome.
So last Friday they turned up on my desk and I proceeded to start reading Don't Make Me Think. It's a book on web usability and the basic premise is that as a user, we shouldn't have to think about where things are, what something is, or how to use it when browsing the Web. I obtained the book on a recommendation from a friend for the purpose of personal learning. As it turns out, it has also been helping me rethink how I design our custom web forms in SharePoint. And at a very opportune moment.
For some reason a form that worked quite well last academic year is pitching a fit this semester and causing students, faculty, and staff all sorts of problems. I mean lots of problems. We have had at least 4 problems a week with user access, usage, or otherwise on a process that's had a mere 50 applications submitted thus far. And when I started reading this book we had been considering expanding the instructions further to hopefully eliminate some of the confusion. More text was exactly the wrong thing, according to Steve Krug. But redesigning the form would be even worse as it would change it mid-process for many people. So rather than putting in more text or significantly altering the appearance, I found small tweaks like just disabling buttons instead of hiding them to do instead. I don't know if it has helped yet, but here's to hoping.
Steve's book doesn't just apply to web usability though. It really applies to any GUI design whether it's web, stand-alone applications, or operating systems. I know that everything doesn't fit within the bounds of the guidelines he sets, but even he admits that everything fits nicely into it. In fact the book isn't a step-by-step guide to making particular things, but rather a set of (not-so) common sense suggestions.
I haven't even finished reading the book and I've already been able to improve so much of the designs that I think of. With the resurrection of my D&D character tracker project on the horizon, having a common sense approach to design will drastically improve the usability of the web app.
Until next time:
Work hard. Play harder.
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