Who could possibly know more than Disney about guiding, exciting and entertaining people? Interface designers can learn a lot from “Mickey’s 10 Commandments”, developed by Walt Disney Imagineering President, Marty Sklar. (commandments in bold, my comments beneath)
Know your audience The first link in the chain. Be aware of who your users are, what they like & dislike.
Wear your guest’s shoes Put yourself in your user’s shoes, visit what you make regularly and try and see what it’s like for your visitors. Watch them and what they do.
Organize the flow of people and ideas Know where you want to lead people and offer clear pathways to help them find the goals.
Create a “Weenie” Like a hotdog on a stick, draw people on by offering clear visual attractions.
Communicate with visual literacy Use the basics of form, colour, typography, etc. to get your message across clearly.
Avoid overload Don’t confuse users by pulling them in too many directions at once.
Tell one story at a time Think in stories, and make sure you’re only telling one at a time. A well-told story has far more impact than an info-dump.
Avoid contradiction Be consistent in each experience you design, create a little world which is believable.
An ounce of treatment, a tonne of treat Sometimes users will have to work their way through the experience. Offer them a treat at the end, a reward which makes the work worth it and leaves them feeling good about it.
Maintain it Peeling paint gives a feeling of dysfunction. Spend time on upkeep: fix broken links, update content, remove or update outdated info.
Listening to Marty Sklar explain these made me think that there’s one commandment missing. When you hear his voice, it’s clear that he likes the people who visit Disney parks—“guests” in Disney-speak—and really wants to give them an enjoyable visit. Sometimes we interface designers develop an arrogant attitude, and look down on users who are too stupid to understand our genius. “The button’s right there you fool!” We need to remember that we’re trying to help people navigate through complicated functions and information. I’d add “Learn to like your users” between commandment 1 and 2.
The most enthusiastic, positive, funny web-guy I know was interviewed at RailsConf about the being a designer who can write code, and “touching the magic wand”, which isn’t nearly as pornographic as it sounds. Have a listen.
And this is me showing off my new Flip camcorder to Ryan, and his silly little dance, complete with my belly chuckle wobbles.
Discouraging Design Decay
If you’ve ever designed a site which someone else will be maintaining, you know design decay: the little tasteless changes that slowly but surely turn your masterpiece into a piece of trash. Jina Bolton’s written a good guide to laying down the law with a style guide, and pushing back the forces of entropy as long as possible.
My two cents: Jina’s right in everything, except the choice she offers at the end: print or HTML. Don’t make the mistake of creating a printed or PDF styleguide. If you’re working on a project that’s really big enough to need a detailed styleguide, then the odds are that your guide will land in 20 different pairs of hands—various client departments, various content providers, and different agencies working for your client. I’ve seen this happen more than once. By the time they all have a copy, you’ll have changed it, and the annoying distribution cycle begins again. Make your styleguide in HTML, so there’s only one copy, and changes are instantly visible to all. If someone insists on hanging it on their wall, they can print it themselves. For extra credit: make your styleguide a living example of the rules it explains.
Skip the Shop
This just popped up in my reader: “Why We Skip Photoshop” from the 37signals blog, where Jason lays out 7 good reasons to skip Photoshop and jump right into HTML & CSS. I’ve been having quite a few talks with people in my company about this lately, so it’s pretty timely for me.
There’s already a pretty lively conversation going on over there, and I ‘m hoping someone from 37 answers Jeff Croft’s questions, especially:
Is it possible that your no-Photoshop workflow has actually influenced your design style?
I think that’s a big “yes”, but either way, even though I’m a glorified Photoshop-jockey, I’m eager to try skip the Photoshop phase in a project and see what happens. Update: Jeff’s written his own response over at the Blue Flavour blog.
I’ve read Andy Rutledge’s blog as long as it’s been around, and his articles have never failed to be opinionated, structured, intelligent and useful. Now he’s got a podcast called The Design View Show and I can wholeheartedly recommend it for designers, but also clients, project managers, and anyone else who needs to understand, communicate, sell and judge design. He started with a bang in his first show by making it clear that the design profession has been stolen from designers, and we let it happen. Get it in your ears and learn something. And if you’re into the show, you’ll love his blog too.
In September 2005 I had an idea. I’d heard about podcasts, and, after a little research, they sounded fun and easy to make. I mentioned this to my mate André, and after a visit to a local audio gear shop, we started a podcast. We wanted the freedom to be as rude and stupid as we felt on any particular day, so we recorded anonymously. Since last night, that’s all over. Read on…
