justinteractive

It’s not the first time, and I’m afraid it won’t be the last time, that I’m told by a person who is yet to meet me that “you’re production work is outstanding but we don’t see any evidence of your being able to shape a design concept based on solid research techniques”.

Hmm, it’s a bitch for a couple of reasons.

1. I’m seriously failing on communicating my abilities on paper.
2. How did I launch my own software without being able to shape design concepts?

I fall asleep thinking my way through every project from the users perspective, I am the user. I often fear I appear to be rather dumb to my peers when I ask the kinds of questions a user might ask. I watch my non-web-geek friends “doing Facebook”, I question every single process I’m ever involved in. Seriously, it’s becoming obsessive Petrol dispensers, Facebook documentation, dinner menus, the poster on the Victoria line that states (with accompanying wheelchair symbol) “Disabled exit, 100 metres on foot”.

I doubt you’ll meet many designers who painstakingly craft every pixel based on contextual research, interviews and observation. I fear that the industry middle managers believe that understanding users and understanding colour theory are mutually exclusive. Hmm, aren’t they the same folks that think you can’t write code and push pixels?

I get lots of positive feedback about how easy to use or understand my software is, it’s a bitch I don’t seem to be able to do the same thing with my own pitch!

Icons are restful, they don’t insist on your attention, you investigate them at your leisure, they’re not shouting at you.

Text on the other hand, you must interpret, it cannot be ignored, it must be attended to.

Too many software apps are cluttered with functionality, why, because we can (and features mean business, right?) Well, no, not really. Clean, lean, simple and elegant is the way to go. Problem is those of us who know this aren’t always the owners of the software, we’ve got clients and they’re paying the fees.

So, when you can’t cut it out cos the client wants it in, think about using as many soft little icons as possible for all that clutter that you wouldn’t have included in the first place. Leave the text labels and links for the important stuff.

It’s not ideal, but I think its a step in the right direction.