Darjeelink - Alexis Perrier

A guiding light for designers

Web design is a difficult task.
> You have limited space on your page and unlimited content that evolves and changes over time,
> you have visitors who never click on the huge button in the center of the page,
> you have clients who are focused on the colors and the fancyness of their new web site
> you have browsers breaking your layout randomly
> and finally you have very few examples around you of well designed web sites. Not only good looking ones but efficient and tailored to the task at hand.

In this challenging and somber environment, there is a light to guide you : UIE Brainsparks.
Hollywood style music

UIE or User Interface Engineering is a consulting firm specializing in web site and product usability. Their blog UIE Brainsparks and podcast entitled spoolcast, by Jared M. Spool and his team offer free advices and reflexions on key design issues. I have been listening to their podcast for months and truly I have learned a lot.

The last episode I listened to yesterday in the metro, was about using fly over menus for navigability purposes: Usability Tools Podcast: Mouseovers in Navigation . You know, you are scrolling around the page and the menu suddenly pops up and unfolds. The question is : are such navigation tricks really useful or do they somehow hinder the user experience ?
Listen to the podcast for the answer.

Another episode, Usability Tools Podcast: On-Site Search, opened my eyes on the benefit of having a search bar on a web site. It’s obvious when you know it but knowing what keywords are searched for on your web site gives you a strong indication on what is missing from your home page. If users cannot find what they are looking for on your home page chances are they will use the search bar.

The spoolcast is really a great source for learning good web design.

Tags: spoolcast, UIE, usability, web design