Staying User-Centric in the Maze of Web 2.0: How to choose the right new features for your site

Designers and developers are often too easily ensnared by the hype of new technology — in today’s case, AJAX, etc. — and often ignore standard usability practices to be the first on the block with the latest and greatest. Remember splash pages with flash intros? How about cheesy animated gifs? Marquee tags? Of course you do. Yet you would likely never, ever put any of these elements on a website today (without giggling excessively about it).

A few years ago, however, web designers were regularly utilizing these tactics, jumping to implement latest trends. Looking back, it is quite simple to understand the errors in our ways, to see why these design tools were used both ineffectively and excessively. In order to prevent ourselves from making the same errors in the future, however, we must use all we have learned about web interface design; there are some great features of AJAX and other Web 2.0 technologies, but they must be used judiciously just like everything else in the developer toolbox, lest we be laughing at ourselves again five years down the road.

When evaluating the effectiveness of a new interface using AJAX or similar technology, there are three key questions that should be asked:

Key Question 1: Does it Improve the Experience?
Does the technology you want to implement allow the user to find information, complete a task, etc. faster or better than they could the old way? Perhaps the best use of AJAX to date is Google Maps, because the dynamic pan and zoom not only added to the visual design and coolness factor, it greatly improved the experience of using online maps. The original version of Mapquest was great for getting point-to-point directions, but they were not scannable — a user trying to get a good overview of any particular area was met with a clunky, frustrating interface. Paper maps, which can be laid out on a table and viewed from a variety of different perspectives, were still far superior for browsing. The smooth pan offered by Google Maps, however, finally approximates the experience that a paper map gives, allowing easy movement from one point to another, without frustrating page loads and limited viewing areas. In addition, the slicker zoom capabilities offer the user a perspective that a paper map simply cannot.

Not all AJAX implementations, however, improve the experience. Take the “drag and drop” shopping cart idea, for example (which can be done in both Flash and/or AJAX) — although it may seem like a sleek way to let customers purchase items, it is in fact far less efficient than the typical “Add to Cart” button method. As Thomas Baekdal points out, it takes 1000% longer to drag and drop an item to the cart (2.4 seconds), than it does to click on any target (0.2 seconds). While customers might be initially intrigued by the coolness of drag and drop, in the long run this method might not improve the shopping experience.

Beyond the drag and drop shopping cart is Protopage’s drag and drop everything. The ability to position any element anywhere in the visible browser window within this site is initially quite compelling, and incredibly fun for a few minutes. The long term usefulness of this, however, is dubious. I’ve been able to view some “Protopages” that friends and colleagues have created, and they all share one commonality: the information is arranged in a clear, easy to read columnular layout. The “wow” factor — allowing the user to put elements on top of each other, in disarray, or halfway off the page — is generally ignored by anyone who actually uses the page on a regular basis. In the end, this functionality offers no more than My Yahoo! (or any other simlar page), which allows easy drag and drop within predetermined columns.

Stay tuned for Part II (find out the other two key questions to consider when evaluating the effectiveness of a new interface using AJAX or similar technology)

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