"Don’t let the sound of your own wheels..."
A lyric from the Eagles song, "Take it Easy," offers some great wisdom for UX developers. "Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy," cautions against looking inward for solutions instead of soliciting feedback and developing learning models.
I recently noticed that visitors to my resume web page were spending more time navigating menus instead of clicking search buttons.? And when I thought about it, that's what I do, also. But I didn't develop with that behavior in mind.
So, I spent the last few months simplifying my navigation and building more intuitive web pages, eliminating many of those too clever options and controls. To my surprise, it looks better and absolutely provides more information.
And unsurprisingly, I discovered that simplification was contagious.? I simplified one area and suddenly everything else looked too complicated. It becomes a very iterative process that may require discipline to know when the correct balance has been achieved.
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But here's a great reality check for UX design: if you're still using tooltips or help text, it's too complicated. The page should speak for itself. And it takes time to impart that kind of intelligence into your designs. You may find you're not even the best judge of its success.
A great real world use case might be the car radio or appliance clock. How hard are they to reset? I always need the manual to reset my car radio clock. If it's not blatantly obvious its just bad design, plain and simple.
But the ultimate real world use case might be the hotel room wake up call--operating an unfamiliar device in unfamiliar surroundings,? maybe even in the dark. There's no time for a tooltip, help text or user manual. And yet, we rarely if ever fail to answer them. So, here's your first learning model.
How do your UX designs measure up against the wake up call?? Well, if you've not thought in those terms before, the answer might disappoint you.? But now that you're going to consider it, your designs, along with your users, will all benefit.?