Recently, I tried to accomplish a simple task on a website which frustrated me because what should have been simple, was not. All I wanted to do was go to the Mix website and quickly find links to my sessions so I could post them here. Even I should be able to figure this out. As a note, I’m using the Mix site as my illustration here, but I do it out of love and not mean spiritedness. Mix is my favorite conference, but its website…leaves something to be desired. It seems particularly interesting that I’d run into...
Usability and Discoverability (also referred to as Learnability) are often confused with one another, but they really are distinct concepts. In Joel Spolsky’s wonderful User Interface Design for Programmers (go read it!), Joel provides an metaphor to highlight the difference. It takes several weeks to learn how to drive a car. For the first few hours behind the wheel, the average teenager will swerve around like crazy. They will pitch, weave, lurch, and sway. If the car has a stick shift they will stall the engine in the middle of busy intersections in a truly terrifying...
In my last post, I wrote about how most email validation routines are too strict when compared against what is allowed by the RFC. Initially I dismissed this phenomena as the result of ignorance of the RFC or inability to understand it, as I had trouble understanding it myself. However, I think there’s something more fundamental at work here when it comes to validating user data. It seems that many developers, myself included, choose to ignore Postel’s Law when it comes to field validation. Postel’s law states... Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from...
I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that the hardest part of coding is not writing code, but reading it. As Eric Lippert points out, Reading code is hard.
First off, I agree with you that there are very few people who can read code who cannot write code themselves. It’s not like written or spoken natural languages, where understanding what someone else says does not require understanding why they said it that way.
Hmmm, now why did Eric say that in that particular way?
This in part is why reinventing the wheel is so common (apart...
UPDATE: Luke Wroblewski posted a link in my comments to his Best Practices for Form Design PDF. It is 100+ pages chock full of good usability information concerning forms. Thanks Luke! James Avery writes about the Art of Label Placement in which he links to a few great articles on form design and label placement. Web Application Form Design by Luke Wroblewski - This article covers the best ways to arrange labels and submission buttons. Web Application Form Design Expanded by Luke Wroblewski - Another great article from Luke W. expanding on the same topics. Label Placement in Forms by Matteo...