Andrew L. Van Slaars

Users don’t follow directions. At least when I’m a user, I don’t.

If you have a text field on your website or in your application and there is a limit to the number of characters it can except, don’t just tell me about it, make sure that’s how it works!

I just filled out a form with a text field that was followed by the text “(max. 20 characters)”. How many characters does it let me enter? As many as I want! Adding the MAXLENGTH attribute to your input tag, maybe a little JavaScript to let me know when I’ve exceeded the limit. Maybe, just maybe, you could validate your form to make sure I haven’t messed the input up.

This particular form simply and without warning let me submit the text and cut it off at 20 characters. I happened to have entered 22 characters and now my output makes me look like I can’t speak English.

Creating a quality user experience requires a little work on your part to make sure the end user can be successful using your application, even when they don’t follow instructions.

Product Design, Usability design, Usability

I have quite a few reference books that I flip through from time to time, but very few that I read from beginning to end. I started reading Designing the Obvious yesterday and finished today. I read every page and I couldn’t stop reading. The book was very well written and the tone made it easy to read completely without the normal “ok, get to the point” feeling that I get from highly technical books.

Every line either made a point or contributed to one, there was no fluff, just useful information. Given that one major point made in the book had to do with removing unnecessary elements from web applications, it looks like the author took his own advice when writing the book and it paid off.

This book should be on the book shelf of every designer, developer or anyone else who contributes to application development. Understanding the user experience is key to building a successful application and this book will help you do that.

I should also point out that the author, Robert Hoekman Jr., has another book hitting the shelves early in 2008. I will be pre-ordering my copy soon. How about you?

Books, Learning, Usability book, design, Usability