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.8 modem, she complainsand complains&Anyway.What was I talking about? Oh, yeah.Tabs on a Web page.When you actually clickon a tab in a computer program, the screen responds immediately, obeying the laws of thereal world.But when you click on a tab on a Web page, even a fast Web page, you wait atleast three seconds until a new page slowly comes up showing you something that is aslikely as not to be completely different.When you click on the tab on the Urbanfetch Website in Figure 5-9, five things happen that violate physics:1.Nothing happens for a few seconds while the new page is fetched.2.Then the whole page goes white for a while.3.Then, finally, a new page appears.4.But now all the tabs are in a different place (the row of tabs shifts upward due to a lackof attention to detail on the part of the site designers).5.The whole color scheme has changed now, including the color of the Urbanfetch logo,which is not supposed to be a part of the tab area anyway.Some of these quirks are intrinsic to all Web sites; there's nothing that can be done aboutlatency or the way pages refresh (short of using JavaScript and Dynamic HTML, which isn'tquite standard enough yet).And some of these quirks are specific to Urbanfetch's site.The joke here is that all of these problems with tabs are not really usability problems, despitethe fact that some well-known Web usability gurus have complained a lot about them.Thesite is perfectly usable.Why? Go back to our rule from Chapter 4.The point of a metaphor isto show the user the program model.On a Web page, tabs show the user how the site isorganized into sections.Once the user clicks, it almost doesn't matter what happens you'veaccomplished your goal.(A much worse problem with the site in Figure 5-10 is the variouslinks below the row of tabs, which don't look like links and don't look pushable.You would beforgiven if you thought that they were merely advertising slogans and failed to push them.)Figure 5-10: & and watch the whole screen shift around and change color.These minorviolations of physics do not actually detract from the usability of the site.The Program Model34 Microsoft Outlook introduced a new UI concept they called the "Outlook Bar." Located onthe left side of the window, it is probably the most confusing part of a rather confusinginterface.Look at Figure 5-11.Yeah, I know, you're dying to see what's in my Inbox, but ignorethat for a moment and focus on the left edge of the screen where it says OutlookShortcuts.Just by looking at it, can you figure out how to use it? What happens if youclick on the button that says Outlook Shortcuts? Or the button that says MyShortcuts? Are you supposed to click on them or drag them? Nothing about the visualappearance gives you any clues about how the thing works.Figure 5-11: The Outlook Bar.Can you figure out how it works just by looking at it?Now look at my redesigned version in Figure 5-12.It operates exactly the same way, butit uses a metaphor that provides some subtle visual cues to show how it's supposed towork.Outlook Shortcuts looks like a physical card with some icons on it.And it'svery clear that My Shortcuts and Other Shortcuts are additional cards with iconson them, tucked out of the way so that you can see Outlook Shortcuts.When youclick on one of these additional cards, it slides up to show you its contents.35 Figure 5-12: My redesigned version of the Outlook Bar uses a real live metaphor toconvey to the user how it's supposed to work.36 Chapter 6: Consistency and Other HobgoblinsThe main programs in the Microsoft Office suite, Word and Excel, were developed fromscratch at Microsoft.Others were bought from outside companies, notably FrontPage(bought from Vermeer) and Visio, bought from Visio.You know what FrontPage and Visiohave in common? They were originally designed to look and feel just like Microsoft Officeapplications.The decision to emulate the Office UI wasn't merely to suck up to Microsoft or to position thecompanies for acquisition [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.8 modem, she complainsand complains&Anyway.What was I talking about? Oh, yeah.Tabs on a Web page.When you actually clickon a tab in a computer program, the screen responds immediately, obeying the laws of thereal world.But when you click on a tab on a Web page, even a fast Web page, you wait atleast three seconds until a new page slowly comes up showing you something that is aslikely as not to be completely different.When you click on the tab on the Urbanfetch Website in Figure 5-9, five things happen that violate physics:1.Nothing happens for a few seconds while the new page is fetched.2.Then the whole page goes white for a while.3.Then, finally, a new page appears.4.But now all the tabs are in a different place (the row of tabs shifts upward due to a lackof attention to detail on the part of the site designers).5.The whole color scheme has changed now, including the color of the Urbanfetch logo,which is not supposed to be a part of the tab area anyway.Some of these quirks are intrinsic to all Web sites; there's nothing that can be done aboutlatency or the way pages refresh (short of using JavaScript and Dynamic HTML, which isn'tquite standard enough yet).And some of these quirks are specific to Urbanfetch's site.The joke here is that all of these problems with tabs are not really usability problems, despitethe fact that some well-known Web usability gurus have complained a lot about them.Thesite is perfectly usable.Why? Go back to our rule from Chapter 4.The point of a metaphor isto show the user the program model.On a Web page, tabs show the user how the site isorganized into sections.Once the user clicks, it almost doesn't matter what happens you'veaccomplished your goal.(A much worse problem with the site in Figure 5-10 is the variouslinks below the row of tabs, which don't look like links and don't look pushable.You would beforgiven if you thought that they were merely advertising slogans and failed to push them.)Figure 5-10: & and watch the whole screen shift around and change color.These minorviolations of physics do not actually detract from the usability of the site.The Program Model34 Microsoft Outlook introduced a new UI concept they called the "Outlook Bar." Located onthe left side of the window, it is probably the most confusing part of a rather confusinginterface.Look at Figure 5-11.Yeah, I know, you're dying to see what's in my Inbox, but ignorethat for a moment and focus on the left edge of the screen where it says OutlookShortcuts.Just by looking at it, can you figure out how to use it? What happens if youclick on the button that says Outlook Shortcuts? Or the button that says MyShortcuts? Are you supposed to click on them or drag them? Nothing about the visualappearance gives you any clues about how the thing works.Figure 5-11: The Outlook Bar.Can you figure out how it works just by looking at it?Now look at my redesigned version in Figure 5-12.It operates exactly the same way, butit uses a metaphor that provides some subtle visual cues to show how it's supposed towork.Outlook Shortcuts looks like a physical card with some icons on it.And it'svery clear that My Shortcuts and Other Shortcuts are additional cards with iconson them, tucked out of the way so that you can see Outlook Shortcuts.When youclick on one of these additional cards, it slides up to show you its contents.35 Figure 5-12: My redesigned version of the Outlook Bar uses a real live metaphor toconvey to the user how it's supposed to work.36 Chapter 6: Consistency and Other HobgoblinsThe main programs in the Microsoft Office suite, Word and Excel, were developed fromscratch at Microsoft.Others were bought from outside companies, notably FrontPage(bought from Vermeer) and Visio, bought from Visio.You know what FrontPage and Visiohave in common? They were originally designed to look and feel just like Microsoft Officeapplications.The decision to emulate the Office UI wasn't merely to suck up to Microsoft or to position thecompanies for acquisition [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]