In praise of simplicity

Posted on February 2, 2007 by Gene

When one looks for information, speed and clarity tends to be far more useful than glitz and glam. Just a note for you interface and web designers out there. Let the user get to what they need with a minimum of obstacle and a maximum of speed.

Here’s an example.

I looked up the “New Seven Wonders of the World” this morning. Here’s the page at Wikipedia — quick and easy, information laid out in text and easy to access, loads instantly.

Now, try this page. While you wait a few minutes for what they claim to be 46kb of multimedia data, you can scroll down the page to find a confusing array of features and links that clutter up the page. Browse through them for a while searching for information on the New Seven Wonders of the World; go back to the beginning to find that the multimedia whateveritis is still stuck on (10/11) with a spinning icon indicating that it is still loading…

By this time, you’re tired of the subject.