[LINK] Are GUI design standards no longer relevanr?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 10:07 AM 17/01/2010, Fernando Cassia wrote:
>Is the drawing of
>a "monkey wrench" or a "star" more intutive than a button that reads "File"
>?

Funny you should mention symbols versus text, Fernando. I recently 
went to a website that hosts video podcasts. When the presentation 
was finished, I wanted to play it again. But for the life of me, I 
couldn't find the way to do that. I literelly went back to the page 
three times before I recognised the replay button. There was no text 
to draw my attention, just the symbol. Granted, it was the same 
symbol used by YouTube, but the word replay was missing.

So my answer to your question is: there needs to be both, the symbol 
and the word. There are always new users coming to a website who may 
not have the symbol code from their own experience. So why handicap them?

I recently also was asked about the design of a site for a writer who 
had just hired a web designer to create it. My first comment to her: 
Don't use a flash only first page. Some? many? people just turn it 
off. Your first order of business is to get as many people as 
possible stay. Why shoot yourself in the first right out of the gate? 
But surprisingly, that is exactly what many site designers do: 
sabotage their clients.

Yes, GUI standards are definitely relevant. Unfortunately, many web 
designers aren't paying attention to the basics.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or 
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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