Having all the account information consolidated is very important for users as interactions with websites and among users are becoming more and more common. User settings and personal information stored on websites must be easily accessible to users in order to make the experience nice. I would like to use YouTube as an example of successful interface design.

Huge changes on YouTube’s GUI have not been seen but if we pay a little bit of attention we can notice a lot of small improvements. The one I want to point out is the huge personalization YouTube is providing and the way is allowing users to get access to all that features. Something new is this box (picture below) with links to the mail inbox, saved videos, favorites, playlists, etc. YouTube has done a good design putting all this together in a prominent position on the home page. I know, it seems obvious, but some months ago this link box was not there.

My Account has been also improved consolidating all the account data. This information is well organize by tasks: Upload New Video, Compose New Message, Channel Settings (control how others see your channel), etc. Ordering it in this way makes easy for users to find all the information they need to manage their account.

Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice. I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.