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Many programs (often large ones, like MS Office, The GIMP, Maxthon) have a feature called "tip-of-the-day". It explains a small part of the program, like this one in Maxthon:
"You can hide/show the main menu bar by pressing Ctrl+F11"
You can usually browse through them by clicking next. And other options provided are "Previous", "Close", "Do not show at startup".
I think I like the way Maxthon used to handle this; in the browser's statusbar (down at the bottom usually, together with "Done", the progress-bar etc), there would sometimes be a small hint or tip on what else you could do with it.
As Joel Spolsky wrote in his article-series "User Interface Design for Programmers", people don't like reading manuals. But we still want them to use the program, and the features they could benefit from, don't we? Therefore, I think it is useful to have such a feature, without the annoyance of the pop-up on startup.
What do you think? Pop-up? Maxthonstyle? No way?
I really only like the idea of a "tip of the day" if it is displayed when I can't do anything else anyway. For example, when the program is loading a large file. Suppose it has to load some large amount of data when the program is first started. Along with the "loading" splash screen, show a small tip, and have it disappear when the program starts. It's simple, unobtrusive, and can sometimes be very helpful to some users.
I hate to bring up "World of Warcraft" as an example in a programming discussion, but it uses this technique when you first login. Here is an example loading screen. Along with the loading bar and a full screen piece of art, it displays a small tip at the bottom of the screen. Usually these tips lead users to things they can explore further (such as a settings window, character customization tools, etcetera). For example, "Pressing ESCAPE will bring up a menu that lets you customize the the look and feel of the game".
Above all else: allow the user to easily close the tips and stop them from appearing each time. Make every key close the tip dialog when pressed. Have two buttons: "Close Tip" and "Close Tip and Never Show Again", or something to that effect.
It must be easy to banish the tips---but when learning a new GUI, I use them often. If it's a tip at startup I usually turn it off after at most a dozen runs, but if tips are well designed this gives me a sense of the application space.
Ways tips could be improved:
Don't tip a user about a feature that user has used recently.
Making tips sensitive to context can be helpful (the new Vista bars are an example --- pause to get the vapors; I have just said something nice about Vista).
Tips that are unobtrusive or appear during otherwise wasted time are good.
Tip during loading screen is good, but it must be findable after loading is over. Some popular game, maybe it was Baldur's Gate, would give you a tip during loading, and then afterward you could go back and review the tips in your journal. So if you had a vague memory of a useful tip a few screens back, you could find it quickly, in the same place you were accustomed to look for other recent information. A 'recently tipped' item on the help menu perhaps?
Actually, I've never heard of Maxthon. But I actually like those as long as there is a checkbox to make them stop. I like the tips to actually tell me something interesting instead of something very obvious in the UI. But this is really preference. I don't think it is bad design to use them.
No - I dislike them pretty strongly. When I am starting a software application, I almost always have a specific task in mind. The TOTD just interrupts this flow and tries to get me to think about the software rather than the task.
This might not be a direct answer to your question, but personally, I like the way StackOverflow handles this. The badge system essentially acts as a manual, rewarding users for discovering and utilizing the functionality it has to offer. Granted, this isn't really an option for most apps but it works beautifully for StackOverflow.
I think this goes along with the issues against modals -- it's something in a user's way, despite how helpful it may be. Which is why the "Do not show at startup" is needed.
Though I've never used Maxthon before, the way it showed tips sounds like a really good idea. It's unobtrusive and entirely optional as to if users even have to pay them any attention.
IMO, it's not good idea to have a feature that has to ask the user if it should "keep quiet." ;)
And, while some tips can seem blatantly obvious, even these tips can still be useful to users that aren't quite as familiar. Those that already know it can just continue on with their day.
A tip is a good idea, users can discover things they didn't know they didn't know. But rather than using a pop up getting in the way of working, I like how World of Warcraft does it. They put the tip on the loading screen, when you have nothing better to do then stare at the progress bar anyway.
Norman Ramsey made some great points about how tips could be improved. My problem with tips of the day (and I'm speaking as someone who's implemented them in my own apps) is that they are not timely and a bit too intrusive. The typical tip of the day comes up when you start the program, and requires a button click to make it go away. When I actually see a useful tip, my train of thought is usually "I'll have to remember that when I do option ". Of course, it's forgotten by the time I get around to using . And clicking OK during program startup gets old fast, I'll usually disable the tips after the first dozen or so.
My suggestion would be to go the next step and make the tip of the day much more context sensitive. For example, if the program detects that the user is constantly going to Edit | Copy and then Edit | Paste, a good tip would be "Not for nothing, but CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V accomplishes the same thing" and tell them right when they are clicking away at the menu like a lost monkey, not during program startup. Oh, and don't interrupt their work by forcing them to click OK.
What I just suggested - is that what that damn paperclip dude used to do?
IMO Tip of the day (popup) is only within programs that have a certain level of complexity, that you use frequently. So when you open the program you learn a new trick that will help you.
Usually people either like it or hate it, so definitely have an option to disable it.
What I'm worried about with the other type is that it will go unnoticed, you wont believe the areas of programs people never look at.
Maybe put it in something like a "tool tip" (or down at the bottom like the OP described) and make it contextual. A few seconds after you change to a new mode it slides in some text about the current mode.
And YES make the OFF button easy to find!!!
Personally, I prefer software that’s simple enough to not need “Tip of the Day”.
Tip of the day can be good if it's
non-modal, and never in the way
has a "history" I can access
is context sensitive to what I do
Unfortunately, the crappy initial Office implementation Clippy of has completely killed the last idea.
So IMO a good implementation would:
Show up at startup
Make "don't show at startup" the obvious choice
Indicate (with an animation?) that TOTD is accessible from e.g. the toolbar
MouseOver the toolbar icon would give the title/abstract of the "current tip"
clicking on it would give me the tip, give forward/backward navigation through tips,
link to "show all tips" in the manual.
For a large tip database, a "related tips" link might encourage me to explore the manual
Context-sensitive
Later incarnations of Clippy were almost helpful actually: it was nonmodal and stayed out of the way not requiring interaction (the jumping around was attention-grabbing, though), and I remember a few instances where the suggestion was good - e.g. a keyboard shortcut for a command I had accessed repeatedly through the menu.
A simpler method could still be effective:
"Did you know... you can customize the print templates to look like a pie chart on LSD - the manual shows you how! [clickety]" on a print dialog
Did you know... I can remember your custom searches. Just click 'Goof/Barf/Hidden/Create Index for last Query' - and they'll show up in the 'Search' menu. They'll run much faster, too! whe working with a search/query form
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I presented a prototype piece of software to the "customer" of a product I've been working on. The program's requirements were extremely vague because the customer had doubts as to what can be accomplished through software (he normally deals with hardware and parts).
The customer was very impressed with the functionality of the program and really the biggest desire was to have a more user friendly GUI -- whatever that is supposed to mean. This lead me to think exactly what makes for a user-friendly GUI.
I feel like its a hard question to answer as someone who writes a program due to the fact I know all the inner workings of the GUI. I know getting some friends/coworkers/etc to play around with it for a little bit and getting feedback is a great way to test the intuitiveness of a GUI, but that doesn't mean its a user-friendly, it just means the user can eventually 'figure it out'.
I don't want this question to be specific to my project, I just wanted to let you know where I'm coming from. What do you think makes for a user-friendly GUI?
You might enjoy "About Face: The essentials of interaction design," by Alan Cooper et al.
I personally am partial to Paul Heckle's "The elements of friendly software design." Parts are out-of-date, but some axioms are timeless, like:
Don't frustrate the user.
Give the user control.
Respond to the user's actions.
There are more, but you'll have to buy the book.
Here's a few concrete things to pay attention to:
avoid the use of dialogs. They interrupt "flow"
pay attention to tab order (ie: make sure user can use tab to navigate between items)
be consistent with the platform (windows-like buttons on windows, mac-like buttons on mac, use standard shortcuts)
use standard fonts, colors and icons. Don't think you know more than your user what looks good.
tailor the interface so that the most common actions are the easiest to do
do things that give your user confidence (like automatically saving backups or having proper undo, so they don't feel like they can accidentally lose data)
make sure all windows have proper resize behavior. Give the user the ability to make input areas bigger and/or make sure they work with big fonts.
And finally,
create prototypes (paper works fine) and ask your actual users.
In General:
I like adding an "Easy Button": It could do all the default stuff automatically.
Wizards are always nice for those who want to go through step by step.
Drag and Drop capabilities
Tool Tips and descriptive ICONS.
I'd say the biggest thing is labels for inputs. I've seen too many forms that have either no labels or ambiguous labels. Also spacing, if there is a mass of white space between elements they might appear disjointed, or if they are squished together it might become difficult to distinguish between them. If there are two buttons can I easily click on the one I intend to click on?
Font choices also make for a user-friendly GUI. Sure, they are mostly aesthetic, but if I can't read what is on the screen because it is too small or in a poor font the GUI becomes more difficult to use.
Artsy items like music or images can detract from a GUI being user-friendly. Listening to the same sound on a loop can be annoying, or being slowed down when loading the application to load images can detract from being user-friendly. Imagine that the end-user will be staring at this GUI for an 8 hour day, 5 days a week. Is the GUI useful or annoying?
Use options to make the user's life easier. Let them feel like they are in control of the software rather than being dominated by it. The user should feel the software is a tool, not a necessary evil.
Small things like being able to hit "Enter" to submit a form or "Tab" to jump between elements. Make the user work as little as possible, use computers to automate their life.
Do not downplay intuitiveness, being able to figure out the GUI is a portion of being user-friendly, if the design is not intuitive or easily able to be figured out it does not invite itself for being user-friendly.
One principle that is easy to grasp is this: don't make the user do anything the computer can do for them.
Task-focused: Offer tasks and use terminology that your users know (e.g. "Find street" instead of "Search 'street' column"). When the user has selected a task, stick to that task. Do not mix significantly different tasks even if the implementation is very similar. Focus on necessary functionality, don't clutter common functionality with controls for infrequent tasks.
Explorative: Users don't expect they need to read a manual anymore, and they trust you their data is safe, even if they play around a bit. Be obvious, and be forgiving: give clear indications what will happen, and tolerate mis-clicks without adverse effect to your user (e.g. an undo function, or at least clear confirmations that data will now be deleted).
Consistent and Specific: Controls and features that look the same should work the same. Features that are different should look different. The principle of least surprise work here as well.
Often times convention is one of the most important design consideration for user interface. Usually the advice goes to do it like Microsoft does.
This is for three reasons:
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
If your users expect to click on a floppy disk icon to save, don't change the icon (even though some of them may have never seen an actual floppy disk).
Users don't want to re-learn the interface (and hot keys, etc.) with each different application they use.
At the same time Emmerson said "*A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.*" So when does maintaining a consistent user interface cross the line from a good idea to stagnated innovation?
Microsoft shook up the good old WIMP GUI with the introduction of the tool bar, and then again with the Ribbon control (which is the natural evolution of the tool bar, like it or not.) Now we are seeing ribbons everywhere.
So my question is, what are some user interface paradigms that are accepted and consistent across multiple applications, but have stayed past their prime and are starting to reek? Are there some important changes that would benefit from a grass roots push by developers to innovate and improve the user interface experience for our users?
One thought that came to mind for me is the modal pop-up dialog. You know the ones that say: "Are you sure you want to . . .. - [Yes] [No] [Cancel] [Maybe]" and its evil twin "Successfully completed what you wanted to do! [OK]." We are seeing a movement away from these with the "info panel" in browsers. I think they need to be adopted in windows application development as well.
If possible please list a solution for each stale UI item.
And please don't list clippy. We all know he was a bad idea.
NOTE: This is specifically Windows client user interface paradigms, but I am certainly open to drawing inspiration from the web, the Mac, etc.
You mentioned popup modal dialogs , and I'd argue that non-modal ones are just as bad. Any dialog box remove focus from the program, they could end up behind the program and make it hard to find it, they might not even appear on the same virtual screen.
I'd like to see an end to all dialog boxes. If you need to stop someone from using the UI because of some non-normal circumstance, then remove the relevant parts of the UI from the window, and replace it with what the dialog would contain. Bring back the UI once the problem has been handled.
Clicking things on touch interfaces
It's incredibly difficult to click on things on a touch interface, because you don't know when you have pressed the screen hard enough. And if you add an animation to the button you are clicking, you most likely wont see it, because your finger is in the way. Adding other reactions, like vibrating the phone or painting waves on the screen might work, but there is usually a delay which is too large, much larger than the tactile sense of a button being pressed. So until they invent a screen with buttons that can be pressed, all touch devices should move towards dragging user interfaces (DUIs) instead.
Counter intuitively it is easier to press an object on the screen, drag it, and then release it than it is to just press and release it. It's probably because you can see the object moving when you start dragging, and you can adjust the pressure while dragging it. Dragging also has a lot more options, because you now have a direction, not just a point that you clicked. You can do different things if the user drags the object in different directions. Speed might also be used, as well as the point where the user releases the object. The release point is the real strength of DUIs, because it is very easy to release something, even with pixel precession.
Some designs have started to use DUIs, like (here we go) the iPhone, palm pre and android phones. But only part of their design is DUI, the rest is clicking. One area they all have in common is the keyboard. Instead of clicking on a key the user presses any key, then drags their finger towards the key they really wanted to click. Unlocking these phones also uses dragging.
Other easily implemented DUI features would be things like mouse gestures, where dragging in different directions, or drawing different shapes does different things. There are also alternate keyboards being researched which puts a bigger emphasis on dragging. All buttons can be changed into switches, so have to drag them down a bit to click them. With a well designed graphics, this should be intuitive to the user as well.
The Apple Human Interface Guidelines are a good read on this topic. They discuss this from a very broad point of view and the guidelines apply to any platform, not only Mac.
The file system. I want to save a file.. >OOOPs I need to think of a file name first. Well.... how about ... blah.doc.
6 months later...
Where the %#*(%& * did I save that %()#*()*ing file?
The solution is build a versioning system into the application, or better, the OS. Make files findable by their content, with a search engine, instead of forcing the user to come up with a memorable name, when all they want is for their file to not get lost.
Eliminate the save step. Type something in to the application, and it's just there, and there's no risk of losing it by some misstep, like forgetting to save. If you want an older version, you can just pick a date and see what the document looked like back then.
To build on the search engine idea: It's a pain having to navigate some arbitrary tree structure to find your stuff. Searching is much easier. However, you might still want to have something like a "folder" to group multiple files together. Well, you can build a richer metadata system, and have a "category" or "project" field, and setup the search engine to show items by project, or by category. Or group by those, or whatever new UI discovery we make next.
This question is a bit too open-ended, IMHO.
However, my main approach when designing anything is:
Fits in to wherever it is. If it's a windows app, I copy MS as much as a possible
It's simple.
It provides options
Buttons have a nice description of what the result of clicking will be, as opposed to 'yes or 'no'
Harder to answer the rest of your post without spending hours typing out an arguably useless (and repeated) set of guidelines.
In my mind, the one thing that really stands out is that USERS need more and easier control over the application's user interface appearance and organization.
So many interfaces can not be modified by the user so that the most used/favorite functions can be grouped together. This ability would make your favorite software even easier for you to get things done.
Error messages need a "Just do it!" button.
Seriously, I really don't care about your stupid error message, just DO WHAT I TOLD YOU TO DO!!!
I think the entire Document model of the web needs to change. It's not a user interface, but it leads to many, many bad user interfaces.
The document model was a good idea to connect a bunch of documents, but now the web is also a collection of applications. Today, I think the Page/document model corrupts our thinking. We end up lumping things together that aren't related, modularizing our code wrong, and in the end confusing users with our monolithic control board type websites.
Find dialogs that sit over the widget in which you are doing the search are terrible. Loads of apps do that. The find bar in Firefox works much better.
Many applications have multiple panes within the UI - eg in Outlook there's the preview pane and the inbox pane (amongst others). In these applications typically cursor key presses apply to the currently focussed pane. But there's very poor hinting to show the user which pane has focus and there are seldom keyboard shortcuts to move the focus between panes.
The focussed pane should be highlighted somehow.
Something like alt+cursor keys should move the focus around.
Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab cycle left and right through tabs instead of MRU behavior, even though in most cases the same behavior is duplicated with Ctrl-PageUp and Ctrl-PageDown.
There are a lot but here's an idea for a couple of them:
Remove some clicks like in "add another" or "search item" and the like.
This is well done with interfaces like ajax which have autocompletes ( and auto search ) but is slowly being adopted for platform UI's ( and in some cases they were originated in platform UI's. )
This is how StackOverflow does it for some scenarios.
But of course, we all know that already don't we? No need for "Seach tag" or "Add another tag" buttons, they just happen
Dialogs as you described.
Guys at Humanized proposed Transparent messages which actually are used in their product Enso and some other places.
Mac uses them for notifications ( like in Growl ) use them very well, or Ubuntu new notification system.
alt text http://blogs.sun.com/plamere/resource/NowPlayingGrowl.png
Firefox replaces the traditional "Search" dialog box with a search bar at the bottom.
Although not everyone likes the placement for next/previous as in this screenshot
And even SO ( again ) :) replace the notification with the yellow bar.
Finally:
File managers
I really like ( sometimes ) the simplicity of regular file managers, but some times I would like to work faster/better with them.
If you compare IE 4 with IE 8 you can tell the advance ( even better compare IE 4 with Google Chrome )
But if you compare Windows 95 Explorer with Win XP they are almost the same!! ( Win Vista/7 is a step forward )
But I wonder: Why haven't file managers improved as much as webbrowsers?
That's one reason I like stuff like QuickSilver but it is just a step. Much work is needed to create something like a "Perfect program launcher" or (FileManager/DesktopSearcher etc as you wish )
QuickSilver featuring "move to" action
This is inspired by the question OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?.
I remember reading somewhere about the concept of switching OK-Cancel/Cancel-OK in certain situations to prevent the user from clicking through information popups or dialog boxes without reading their content. As far as I remember, this also included moving the location of the OK button (horizontally, left to right) to prevent the user from just remembering where to click.
Does this really make sense? Is this a good way to force the user to "think/read first, then click"? Are there any other concepts applicable to this kind of situation?
I am particularly thinking of a safety-related application, where thoughtlessly pressing OK out of habit can result in a potentially dangerous situation whereas Cancel would lead to a safe state.
Please don't do this unless you are really, really, really sure it's absolutely required. This is a case of trying to fix carelessness and stupidity by technological means, and that sort of thing almost never works.
What you could do is use verbs or nouns instead of the typical Windows OK / Cancel button captions. That will give you an instant attention benefit without sacrificing predictability.
NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
In one of our products we have a user option to require Ctrl+Click for safety related commands.
But startling the user with buttons that swap place or move around is bad design in my book.
NO. If you make it harder for the user to click OK by mistake and force them to think, they will still only think harder about how to click OK -- they will not think about the actual thing they're trying to carry out. See usability expert Aza Raskin's article: Never use a warning when you mean Undo. Quote:
What about making the warning
impossible to ignore? If it’s
habituation on the human side that is
causing the problem, why not design
the interface such that we cannot form
a habit. That way we’ll always be
forced to stop and think before
answering the question, so we’ll
always choose the answer we mean.
That’ll solve the problem, right?
This type of thinking is not new: It’s
the
type-the-nth-word-of-this-sentence-to-continue approach. In the game Guild Wars, for
example, deleting a character requires
first clicking a “delete” button and
then typing the name of the character
as confirmation. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t always work. In particular:
It causes us to concentrate on the unhabitual-task at hand and not on
whether we want to be throwing away
our work. Thus, the
impossible-to-ignore warning is little
better than a normal warning: We end
up losing our work either way. This
(losing our work) is the worst
software sin possible.
It is remarkably annoying, and because it always requires our
attention, it necessarily distracts us
from our work (which is the second
worst software sin).
It is always slower and more work-intensive than a standard
warning. Thus, it commits the third
worst sin—requiring more work from us
than is necessary.
[If you want a Microsoftish one, this one by a .NET guy on MSDN says the same thing!]
If you must use a dialog, put descriptive captions on the buttons within the dialog.
For example, instead of OK and Cancel buttons, have them say "Send Invoice" and "Go Back", or whatever is appropriate in the context of your dialog.
That way, the text is right under their cursor and they have a good chance of understanding.
The Apple Human Interface Guideline site is a great reference, and very readable. This page on that site talks about Dialogs.
Here is an example image:
(source: apple.com)
No, it doesn't make sense. You're not going to "make" users read. If the decision is that crucial, then you're better off finding a way to mitigate the danger rather than handing a presumed-careless user a loaded gun.
Making the "safe" button default (triggered by enter/spacebar/etc.) is a good idea regardless, simply because if they surprise the user then a keystroke intended for the expected window won't accidentally trigger the unexpected action. But even in that scenario, you must be aware that by the time the user has realized what they've done, the choice is already gone (along with any explanatory text on the dialog). Again, you're better off finding another way to give them information.
What I've done in some instances was to compare the time of the message box being shown with the time of it being dismissed. If it was less than 'x' amount of seconds, it popped right back up. This forced them, in most cases, to actual read what was on the screen rather than just clicking through it blindly.
Fairly easy to do, as well....
Something like this:
Dim strStart As DateTime = Now
While Now < strStart.AddSeconds(5)
MessageBox.Show("Something just happened", "Pay Attention", MessageBoxButtons.OK)
If Now < strStart.AddSeconds(5) Then strStart = Now Else Exit While
End While
At the end of the day you can't force a user to do something they're unwilling to do... they will always find a way around it
Short cut keys to bypass the requirement to move the mouse to a moving button.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the EULA without reading it to enable to continue.
Starting the software and then going to get their cup of tea while waiting for the nag screen to enable the OK button.
The most reliable way I've seen this done is to give a multiple choice question based on what is written. If they don't get the answer correct, they can't continue... of course after a couple of times, they'll realise that they can just choose each of the answers in turn until the button enables and then click it. Once again meaning they don't read what was written.
You can only go so far before you have to put the responsibility on the user for their actions. Telling the user that their actions are logged will make them more careful - if they're being held accountable, they're more likely to do things right. Especially if there's a carefully crafted message that says something like:
This is being logged and you will be held accountable for any
repercussions of this decision. You have instructed me to delete
the table ALL_CORPORATE_DATA. Doing so will cause the entire company's
database to stop working, thus grinding the whole company to a halt.
You must select the checkbox to state that you accept this responsibility
before you can choose to continue...
And then a checkbox with "Yes, I accept the responsibility for my actions" and two buttons:
"YES, I WANT TO DELETE IT" this button should only be enabled if the checkbox is checked.
"OH CRAP, THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL" this button can always be enabled.
If they delete the table and the company grids to a halt, they get fired. Then the backup is restored and everyone's happy as Larry [whoever Larry is] again.
Do NOT do it, please. This will have no positive effect: You are trying to AVOID people's clicking OK instead of Cancel, by making them potentially click Cancel instead of OK (okay, they may try again). But! you might as well achieve people's clicking OK when they really want to cancel and that could be a real disaster. It's just no good.
Why not reformulate the UI to make the OK the "safe choice"?
The problem is better solved with a combination of good feedback, communication of a system model and built-in tolerance.
In favor of the confirmation mechanism speaks the simplicity of implementation. From programmer's point of view it's the easiest way of shifting responsibility onto user: "Hey, I've asked you if you really want to shoot yourself into the foot, haven't I? Now there is no one to blame but yourself..."
From user point of view:
There is a productivity penalty of having to confirm operation twice every time even though actual mistakes take up just a fraction of total number of actions, any switching of buttons, breaking the habitual workflow or inserting a pause into confirmation just increases the penalty.
The mechanism doesn't really provide much safety net for frequent users whose reflexes work ahead of the concious mind. Personally I have many times done a complex sequence of actions only to realise a moment later when observing the consequences that my brain somehow took the wrong route!
A better for the user, but more complex (from software development point of view) solution would be:
Where possible communicate in advance what exact affect the action is going to make on the system (for instance Stack Overflow shows message preview above Post Your Answer button).
Give an immediate feedback to confirm once the action took place (SO highlights the freshly submitted answer, gmail displayes a confirmation when a message is sent etc).
Allow to undo or correct possible mistake (i.e. in SO case delete or edit the answer, Windows lets restore a file from recycle bin etc). For certain non-reversible actions it's still possible to give an undo capability but for a limited timeframe only (i.e. letting to cancel or change an online order during the first 10 minutes after its submission, or letting to recall an e-mail during the first 60 seconds after its been "sent", but actually queued in the outbox etc).
Sure, this is much more initial work than inserting a confimation message box, but instead of shifting the responsibility it attempts to solve the problem.
But if the OK/Cancels are not consistent, that might throw off or upset the user.
And don't do like some EULAs where a user is forced to scroll a panel to the bottom before the Agree button becomes clickable. Sometimes you just won't be able to get a user to read everything carefully.
If they really need to read it, maybe a short delay should happen before the buttons appear? This could also potentially be annoying to the user, but if it is a very critical question, it'd be worth it.
Edit: Or require some sort of additional mechanism than just clicking to "accept" the very important decision. A check box, key press, password, etc.
I recommend informing the user that this is a critical operation by using red text and explaining why is this an unsafe operation.
Also, rather than two buttons, have two radio buttons and one "Ok" button, with the "don't continue" radio button selected as default.
This will present the user with an uncommon interface, increasing cognitive load and slowing him down. Which is what you want here.
As always with anything with user interaction, you have a small space between helping the user and being annoying. I don't know you exact requirements but your idea seems OK(pun intended) to me.
It sounds like your user is going through a type of input wizard in the safety app.
Some ideas as alternatives to moving buttons.
Have a final screen to review all input before pressing the final ok.
Have a confirmation box after they hit ok explaining what the result of this action will be.
A disclaimer that require you to agree to it by checking a box before the user could continue.
Don't switch it around - you'll only confuse more than you'll help.
Instead, do like FireFox and not activate the control for 5 sec. - just make sure you include a timer or some sort of indicator that you're giving them a chance to read it over. If they click on it, it cuts off the timer, but requires they click one more time.
Don't know how much better it will be, but it could help.
Just remember, as the man said: You can't fix stupid.
This will give me headache. Especially when I accidentally close the application and forget to save my file :(
I see another good example of forcing user to "read" before click: Firefox always grayed out the button (a.k.a disable) the "OK" button. Therefore the user have to wait around 5 seconds before he can proceed to do anything. I think this is the best effort I have seen in forcing user to read (and think)
Another example I have seen is in "License and Agreements" page of the installer. Some of them required the user to scroll down to the end of the page before he/she can proceed to next step.
Keyboard shortcuts would still behave as before (and you'd be surprised how few people actually use mice (especially in LOB applications).
Vista (and OSX IIRC) have moved towards the idea of using specific verbs for each question (like the "Send"/"Don't send" when an app wants to crash and wants to submit a crashdump to MS)
In my opinion, I like the approach used by Outlook when an app tries to send an email via COM, with a timer before the buttons are allowed to be used (also affects keyboard shortcuts)
If you use Ok and Cancel as your interface you will always be allow the user to just skip your message or screen. If you then rearrange the Ok and Cancel you will just annoy your user.
A solution to this, if your goal is to insure the users understanding, is:
Question the user about the content. If you click Ok you are agreeing to Option 1, or if you click Ok you are agreeing to option 2. If they choose the correct answer, allow the action.
This will annoy the user, so if you can keep track of users, only do it to them once per message.
This is what I responded to Submit/Reset button order question and I think the same principle can be used here. The order does not really matter as far as you make sure the user can distinguish the two buttons. In the past what I have done is used a button for (submit/OK) button and used a link for (reset/cancel) button. The users can instantly tell that these two items are functionally different and hence treat them that way.
I am not really for OK/Cancel. It's overused and requires you to read the babbling in order to say what you are OKing or Canceling. Follow the idea of MacOSX UI: the button contains a simple, easy phrase that is meaningful by itself. Exampleç you change a file extension and a dialog pops up saying:
"Are you sure you want to change the extension from .py to .ps?"
If you perform the change, the document could be opened by a different application.
(Use .ps) (Keep .py)
It is way more communicative than OK/Cancel, and your question becomes almost superfluous, that is, you just need to keep active the rightmost button, which seems to be the standard.
As it concerns the raw question you posed. Never do it. Ever. Not even at gunpoint. Consistency is an important requisite for GUIs. If you are not consistent you will ruin the user experience, and your users will most likely to see this as a bug than a feature (indeed it would be a BUG). Consistency is very important. To break it, you must have very good reason, and there must not be another different, standard way to achieve the same effect.
I wonder if you're thinking about the option that exists in Visual Basic where you can set various prompts and response options; and one option is to allow you to switch Cancel and OK based on which should be the default; so the user could just hit enter and most of the time get the proper action.
If you really want to head in this direction (which I think is a bad idea, and I'm sure you will too after little reflection and reading all the oher posts) it would work even better to include a capcha display for OK.
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Have you ever been in a situation where a menu function you really really want to use but can't cause it's disabled or worse gone all together?
There is an argument for always leaving menus enabled and then display a message to a user explaining why a menu function can not be activated when they click on it. I think there is merit in this but maybe there is a cleverer way of addressing this issue.
I would be interested to hear what others think.
If you're refering to Joel's post Don't hide or disable menu items, he clarified in the StackOverflow podcast that he intended that there be information - not a dialog - telling you why a menu item wouldn't do anything:
So, the use-case I was thinking of was, you had mentioned that in the Windows Media Player, you can play things faster when you're listening to podcasts and so forth, and it'll speed them up. And when I looked in there, that was disabled. And I couldn't figure out how to enable it. And obviously the help file is no help--not that anybody reads help files, but even if you did you couldn't find the answer to that. And that was kind of frustrating, and I'd rather have that menu item be enabled and have it just tell me "I'm not going to do this right now because of the following reason. I refuse to do this."
As with most questions about usability, the answer is "it depends". It depends on the problem domain, the type of user, how critical the function is and so on. There is no single answer to your question.
I think the general consensus is, never ever totally remove items from a menu. Menus allow the user to freely discover what functions are available, but if those items are hidden or move around it does nothing to help the user. Also, moving them around makes it impossible to become proficient with the application since you have to constantly scan the menus for the item you want to select.
As for disabling versus enabling an item and displaying a dialog or message explaining why it's not something you can do, I generally prefer the former. However, if there's a function that a user can't reasonably be expected to intuit from the display, leaving it enabled is a good choice.
For example, if "Paste" is disabled it's reasonably obvious to most computer users that there's nothing to paste. However, if you have a "Frizzle the Bonfraz" menu item and the user may not know what a Bonfraz is or why they might want to enable it but can't, it's a good idea to leave it enabled at least for a while.
So again, it depends. If at all possible, do what you think is best and then ask your users.
To generalize it a bit (perhaps incorrectly...), which of these situations would you prefer:
To find yourself on an island with no boat or bridge in site. Of course, you could talk to the villager in town and he would tell you the magical word to make a bridge appear...but you had no idea that magic existed.
You see that there is a bridge; however, when you get to it, there is a sign telling you that the bridge is not open to use.
You see that there is a bridge and celebrate! When you get to the end of the bridge, it tells you that the exit is not open. They must go back.
Maybe I am biased, but I don't believe that leaving the menu options enabled and allowing the user to click on it is the best of idea. That's just wasting someone's time. There is no way for them to distinguish that the item is available or not until they click on the item. (Scenario #3)
Hiding the item all together has its pros and cons. Completely hidden and you run the risk of the user never discovering all these features; however, at the same time, you are presented with the opportunity of making your application 'fun' and 'discoverable.' I've always thought the visibility of actions is more suited to items like toolbars. A good example of that is in when in some applications the picture toolbar pops up when you click on an image...and disappears when you click on text. In general, I would say that something like this is best if the overall experience of your application lends towards a "discovering" and "exploring" attitude from the user. (Scenario #1)
I would generally recommend disabling the items and providing a tooltip to the user informing them how to enable it (or even a link to Help?); however, this cannot be overdone. This must be done in moderation. (Scenario #2)
In general, when it's a context-related action (i.e. picture toolbar) that the user can easily discover, hide the items. If the user won't easily find it, have it disabled.
Make it disabled but have the tooltip explain why it's disabled
It depends on the situation. If the menu item has applies in the current context but isn't available because of state, it should be disabled. If the context has changed so it no longer applies, it should be removed.
I've never really understood this myself (I don't program GUIs). Why even have menu items hidden or disabled in the first place? It is non-intuitive for most users who are looking for a particular menu option to find it disabled, or not even present.
Tooltips are also non-intuitive. If I'm moving my mouse across menu items, I'm not going to pause long enough to get a tooltip explanation. I'm more likely to become frustrated that something I expected to be accessible through the menu isn't there, or is disabled.
That said, I actually don't use GUI menus very often. I find the options available are often not useful, or are accessible in some more intuitive way, such as common keyboard shortcuts.
You can display the 'reason' in the status bar. Or even better, use a text that describes the action and contains information when such action is possible. For example, for 'Copy' menu item, the text in status bar would be: Copy the selected text. Note the 'selected' part, which tells the user that he needs to select the text to enable the menu item.
Another example in a tool I'm making, we have 'Drop database' menu item, but this action is only possible when you're connected to it. So, the text in status bar goes something like: 'Drop the database (only when connected)'.
I've always believed that you should hide as much as you can. (Your application shouldn't be any more complex than what the user can/should do.)
If you display a menu option that a user shouldn't be using, they may click on it, but think your application is broken because nothing happens.
That's what I think at least...
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What techniques do you know\use to create user-friendly GUI ?
I can name following techniques that I find especially useful:
Non-blocking notifications (floating dialogs like in Firefox3 or Vista's pop-up messages in tray area)
Absence of "Save" button
MS OneNote as an example.
IM clients can save conversation history automatically
Integrated search
Search not only through help files but rather make UI elements searchable.
Vista made a good step toward such GUI.
Scout addin Microsoft Office was a really great idea.
Context oriented UI (Ribbon bar in MS Office 2007)
Do you implement something like listed techniques in your software?
Edit:
As Ryan P mentioned, one of the best way to create usable app is to put yourself in user's place. I totally agree with it, but what I want to see in this topic is specific techniques (like those I mentioned above) rather than general recommendations.
If you do give the user a question, don't make it a yes/no question. Take the time to make a new form and put the verbs as choices like in mac.
For example:
Would you like to save?
Yes No
Should Be:
Would you like to save?
Save Don't Save
There is a more detailed explanation here.
Check out the great book Don't make me think by Steve Krug.
It's web focused but many of the conepts can apply to anything from blenders to car dashboards.
Topics covered:
User patterns
Designing for scanning
Wise use of copy
Navigation design
Home page layout
Usability testing
He also has a blog called Advanced Common Sense
And some random UI related links:
- User Interface Design for Programmers by Joel Spolsky
- 10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of
First Principles: Wilfred James Hansen
Know the User
Minimize Memorization
Optimize Operations
Engineer for Errors
Subsequent Expansions: Dr. Theo Mandel
Place Users in Control
Use Modes Judiciously (modeless)
Allow Users to use either the Keyboard or Mouse (flexible)
Allow Users to Change Focus (interruptible)
Display Descriptive Messages and Text (helpful)
Provide Immediate and Reversible Actions, and Feedback (forgiving)
Provide meaningful Paths and Exits (navigable)
Accommodate Users with Different Skill Levels (accessible)
Make the User Interface Transparent (facilitative)
Allow Users to Customize the Interface (preferences)
Allow Users to Directly Manipulate Interface Objects (interactive)
Reduce Users' Memory Load
Relieve Short-term Memory (remember)
Rely on Recognition, not Recall (recognition)
Provide Visual Cues (inform)
Provide Defaults, Undo, and Redo (forgiving)
Provide Interface Shortcuts (frequency)
Promote an Object-action Syntax (intuitive)
Use Real-world Metaphors (transfer)
User Progressive Disclosure (context)
Promote Visual Clarity (organize)
Make the Interface Consistent
Sustain the Context of Users’ Tasks (continuity)
Maintain Consistency within and across Products (experience)
Keep Interaction Results the Same (expectations)
Provide Aesthetic Appeal and Integrity (attitude)
Encourage Exploration (predictable)
To add to your list, aku, I would put explorability as one of my highest priorities. Basically, I want the user to feel safe trying out the features. They should never back away from using something for fear that their action might be irreversible. Most commonly, this is implemented using undo/redo commands, but other options are no doubt available e.g. automatic backups.
Also, for applications that are more process-oriented (rather than data-entry applications), I would consider implementing an interface that guide the user a bit more. Microsoft's Inductive User Interface guidelines can help here, although you need to be very careful not to overdo it, as you can easily slow the user down too much.
Finally, as with anything that includes text, make the user interface as scannable as possible. For example, if you have headings under which commands/options appear, consider putting the action word at the start, rather than a question word. The point that Maudite makes is a good example of scannability too, as the "Don't Save" button text doesn't rely on the context of the preceding paragraph.
A useful technique which I never see anyone use is to add a tooltip for a disabled UI control explaining why the control is disabled. So if there's a listbox which is disabled and it's not clear why it is disabled, I want to hover over it and it tells me why it's disabled. I want to see something like "It's disabled because two textboxes on the screen were left blank or because I didn't enter enough characters in some field or because I didn't make a certain action.".
I get into sooooo many such situations and it's frustrating. Sometimes I end up posting in the software's forum asking why a control is greyed out when a tooltip could have helped me in a second! Most of these software have help files which are useless in these kinds of scenarios.
Try to pretend you know nothing about your software and try using it. However this is not practical because you already have a certain mind set towards the app. So watch fellow developers or friends use the app and look out for the pain points and ask for feedback.
One of the classic books to help you think about design is "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman. He gives great real-world examples. For example, if you design a door well, you should never have to add labels that say "push" and "pull." If you want them to pull, put a handle; if you want them to push, put a flat plate. There's no way to do it wrong, and they don't even have to think about it.
This is a good goal: make things obvious. So obvious that it never occurs to the user to do the wrong thing. If there are four knobs on a stove, each one next to an eye, it's obvious that each knob controls the eye it's next to. If the knobs are in a straight line, all on the left side, you have to label them and the user has to stop and think. Bad design. Don't make them think.
Another principle: if the user does make a mistake, it should be very easy to undo. Google's image software, Picasa, is a good example. You can crop, recolor, and touch up your photos all you like, and if you ever change your mind - even a month later - you can undo your changes. Even if you explicitly save your changes, Picasa makes a backup. This frees up the user to play and explore, because you're not going to hurt anything.
I've found UI Patterns to be a useful reference for this sort of thing. It's arranged much like the classic GoF Design Patterns book, with each pattern description containing:
The problem the pattern solves
An example of the pattern in action
Sample use cases for the pattern
The solution to implement the pattern
Rationale for the solution
If you implement a search, make it a live search like what Locate32 and Google Suggest does now. I am so used to not pressing "Enter" at the search box now.
Well, one thing that may be obvious: don't change (even slightly) the position, color, font size, etc. of buttons, menus, links, etc. between screens if they do the same type of action.
Really good feedback is extremely important. Even simple things like making it obvious what can and cannot be clicked can be overlooked or too subtle. Feedback when something might happen in the background is great. In gmail, it's great that there's a status ribbon appearing at the top that let's you know if something is sending or loading, but it's even better that it lets you know that something has sent successfully or is still loading.
The "yellow fade" technique is something else made popular amongst the RoR crowd that accomplishes something similar. You never want the user to ask the question, "What just happened?" or "What will happen when I do this?".
Another trick that has become more popular lately that I've been using a lot is editing in place. Instead of having a view of some data with a separate "edit" screen (or skipping the view and only having an edit screen), it can often be more user friendly to have a nicely laid out view of some data and just click to edit parts of it. This technique is really only appropriate when reading the data happens more often than editing, and is not appropriate for serious data-entry.
If you are doing enterprise software, a lot of users will have small monitors at low resolution. Or if they are old they will have it at a low res so they can see giant buttons ( I have seen an 800x600 on a 24"ish monitor). I have an old 15" monitor at a low resolution (800 x 600) so i can see what the program will look likes in less than idle conditions every now and then. I know that enterprise users pretty much have to accept what they are given but if you design a winform that doesn't fit into an 800x600 screen, it's not helping anyone.
Try to think about your user's end goals first before deciding what individual tasks they would carry out when using your software. The book About Face has excellent discussions on this sort of thing and though quite long is very interesting and insightful. It's interesting to note how many of their suggestions about improving software design seem to used in google docs...
One other thing, keep your user interface as simple and clean as possible.
Here is a great DotNetRocks podcast episode where Mark Miller talks about how to create Good UI; Even though the show title is .NET rocks, this episode talks about a general rule of thumbs on how to create a UI to increase program user's productivity.
Here is an episode exerpt
Good user interface design can be done by sticking to some good rules and avoiding common mistakes. You don't need to be a latte-sippin tattoo-wearin macbook-carrying designer to create user interfaces that work.
I like to follow these 3 guidelines:
Standard - follow known standards/patterns, reuse ideas from all products you respect
Simple - keep your solutions simple and easy to change (if needed)
Elegant - use less to accomplish more
The best technique I found is to put your self in the users shoes. What would you like to see from the GUI and put that in front. This also gives you the ability to prioritize as those things should be done first then work from there.
To do this I try to find "layers of usefulness" and add / subtract from the layers until it seems clean. Basically to find the layers I make a list of all the functions the GUI needs to have, all the functions it should have, and all the functions it would be neat to have. Then I group those so that every thing has logical ordering and the groupings become the "layers". From the layers I then add the most important functionality (or what would be used for Day to Day operation) and that becomes the most prominent part, and I work things into the feature around those items.
One of the toughest things is navigation as you have so much to give the use how do you make it helpful and this is where the layers really help. It makes it easy to see how to layout menus, how other pieces interact, what pieces can be hidden, etc.
I have found the easiest way to do this is to start by see what and how your users function on a day to day basis this which will make it easier to get in their shoes (even better is to do their job for a few days). Then make some demonstrations and put them in front of users even if they are Paper Prototypes (there is a book on this process called Paper Prototyping by Carolyn Snyder). Then begin building it and put it in front of users as it is built often.
I will also recommended the book Designing Interfaces by Jenifer Tidwell published by O'Reilly
The items in the list you presented are really situation dependent - they will vary from application to application. Some applications will need a save button, some won't. Some conditions will warrant a modal dialog box, some won't.
My top rule for designing a usable interface: Follow existing UI conventions. Nothing confuses a user more than a UI that doesn't work like anything they've ever used. Lotus Notes has one of the worst user interfaces ever created, and it is almost entirely because they went against common UI conventions with just about everything that they did.
If you're questioning how you should design a certain piece of your UI, think of a few standard/well-known applications that provide similar functionality and see how they do it.
If your UI involves data entry or manipulation (typical of business apps) then I recommend affording your users the ability to act on sets of data items as much as possible. Also try to design in such a way that experienced users can interact with the UI in a very random, as opposed to sequential way (accelerator keys, hyperlinks, etc).
Sung Meister mentioned Mark Miller. You can find some of his blog posts regarding great UI on the Developer express blog. Here's a screencast of his Science of great UI presentation: part1 and part2. (both require Veoh player).
You can also find him on dnrTV: Science of great user experience: part1 and part2.
Here's a google techtalks about user experience by Jen Fitzpatrick.
Cheers
When using a dropdown, the default dropdown height is usually too low (default is 8 items for winforms, for example).
Increasing it will either save the user a click if the number of items is low or make it easier to search the dropdown if there are a lot of items.
In fact, I see little point in not using all the available space !
This is so obvious to me now, but for example, it seems even VisualStudio designers haven't figured it out (btw, if you manually increase Intellisense's height, it will stay this way, but that's offtopic:))
I'll give one of my personal favorites: avoid dialog boxes at all costs. A truly good U I should almost never need to pop up a dialog box. Add them to your program only as a truly last resort.
For more, you might want to check out easily digestible ui tips for developers.
The Coding Horror Blog regularly gives great ideas. Just some examples:
Exploratory and incremental learning
Self-documenting user interface
Incremental search of features/Smart keyboard access
Task-oriented design (ribbon instead of menus and toolbars)
Providing undo instead of constant confirmation
Another aspect: use scalable icons to solve the problem of multiple user screen resolutions without maintaining different resolution bitmaps.