Title: Seams
Context: The act of simplification is also the reduction of possibility. Use the power of design to simplify wisely.
Synopsis: Sometimes we designers treat our customers like children. Oh, we do it with the best of intentions. All we want is to make their experience better by removing any distractions much the same as we would do by turning off the TV so our easily distracted offspring will just finish their damn homework already. We reduce everything to binary choices where possible and feel guilty even then that we are unable to recreate the holy grail of the single big honking call to action button where all mystery, ambiguity, and confusion have been removed in utopian UI simplicity. “Trust us” we tell our users, “for we know what you intend to do.” And of course the only way that we can be certain that we know is because we have very carefully removed every other option so there remains but a single, clearly delineated path for them to follow. The interface, it seems, is the one place where the act of learning is looked upon as a bad thing.
Best Bit: “Mind reading is no way to base fundamental content decisions.”
via adactio.com
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