Design vs Art Blog

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.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Differentiation among groups of users is key when your site is meant for a broad audience. Giving your users exactly what they are looking for, making it easy for them to find that and providing a feeling of customization will make them happy.

All audiences should be represented in your interface but the real estate for each group can vary. Logic says that the most important users will get by default the biggest part of your home page design.

Good design example could be the Bank of America site. Their menu is basically divided in Personal banking, Small Business and Corporate & Institutional, making a clear difference among user groups. By default, the Small Business menu is set so this might be Bank of America’s core group. Clicking on other menus makes the home page to change and adapt to these groups.

Different but also good design example is Expedia, the online travel agency. They have special menu items representing user’s mental model, which somehow also represents a group of costumers (I need tickets!, I need a whole vacation package!, etc.) Dividing the menu in Flights, Hotels, Cars, Vacation Packages and Cruises (and etc.) makes users happy as they don’t have to investigate the whole site to get what they need.

The bad design example for the end. I don’t like Opera Software menu because, in my opinion, hides the best thing this company has to offer, browsers for different platforms. That obviously represent different groups; people looking for downloads and product information about Opera for desktops, for mobiles and for PDAs. That’s represented on this menu but a little bit hidden.

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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.

Popularity: 9% [?]