Multimedia advice

Minimizing complexity in user interfaces

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Smashing Magazine had an excellent post yesterday on how to deal with complexity when developing user interfaces. In it, they provided five tips to best facilitate usability on your site …

1. Grab the hachet: “Underdo your competition” by eliminating extraneous features.
2. Hide complexity: Conserve screen space by hiding the larger and more complex features.
3. Minimize visual noise: Use abundant white space and avoid contrast.
4. Reduce, reuse, and recycle: Reuse successful practices and elements to reduce perceived complexity.
5. The blank state should not be blank: Provide informative navigation options or other content rather than displaying a blank screen on default (ex. first time user).

“The final word: First, reduce actual complexity by eliminating unnecessary features and then hiding what you can’t eliminate. Secondly, reduce perceived complexity by minimizing visual noise and reusing elements. And finally, use the blank state to help orient users.

Minimizing complexity in the user interface will help people learn your application more quickly, use it more effectively and be happier all the while. As jazz musician Charles Mingus said, ‘Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.’ ”

Read the entire post over at Smashing Magazine.

I would add a couple of other points to the list:

1. Layer your content: No, I didn’t say hide your content, and I’m not talking just about complex features. But it is important to not present the user with every option up front. To make sure you don’t overwhelm your user, allow them to dig deeper to reveal supplemental information.
2. Vary font weights: To give hierarchy to a page, carefully choose what headings to bold, italicize, etc. This will allow a user’s eyes to follow a natural path as they scan the page rather than being confronted with a gray page.

Anything obvious I am leaving out?

[Homepage photo credit: Smashing Magazine]

Other posts that might interest you:

• Conforming multimedia packages to user standards
• Multimedia guru Gabriel Dance advises on how to present data on the Web
• A gentle introduction to the Django Web framework

© 8 October 2009 Innovative Interactivity (II).