Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Don't Make Me Think (A Work-Related Post)

So the coffee creamer and sugar at work went upscale. The containers were redesigned with the dark neutrals that are all the rage these days, but at the cost of usability.

It used to be that these containers were primary colors: One was blue and the other was red. A bleary-eyed soul who hadn't yet had their first cup of coffee could quickly reach for the correct one without having to stop and you know, think. Thinking's not any fun before coffee.

The world will go on, but it just seems like one of those silly decisions made without putting enough thought into it.

The title of this post comes from a great book on web interface design that actually argues in order to make a foolproof, brain-dead simple interface that people just intuitively understand without thinking - that requires a lot of thought by those who are designing the interface. The book is many years old now, but it's still so true.

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