My Professional Blog

Though my job title currently labels me an Application Architect, I have always been interested in web page design. I recognize that I’m not as talented as many of the rock star designers that are currently popular on the web, so I try to read what they read and publish. So recently, I’ve been surveying books on interaction design.

But sometimes you don’t have to read books or blog posts to recognize an obvious improvement in a site.

Someone I know (I promise its not me), recently took an online defensive driving course over the web. Such courses provide video or written content that you must pay attention to and then they quiz you to ensure that you’ve comprehended the material. To get credit for the course, you must be able to pass the quizzes.

Needless to say, the quiz interface design is critical since the quiz enables you to ultimately accomplish your goal of completing the course. However, this particular person was confused by the quiz question data entry. The answers were standard radio buttons, but the submit button was a non-standard image with a label that wasn’t intuitive. As such, the button wasn’t pressed and the alotted time for the question expired.

Now granted, this is not an egregious design failure. Once you miss one question, you figure it out quite readily on the next question. And if you are web savvy, you probably aren’t caught by this problem at all. But a more considered design might have done a couple of things to ensure users got off to a good start. First, if users are likely to be on the low end of web savvy, then use standard user interface controls (e.g. use the ugly gray button). Additionally, incorporate a test quiz into the flow to ensure that the user works through any usage issues. This enables them to work the kinks out while the stakes aren’t quite so high. Lastly, these days screencasts are all the rage. A brief video tour would demonstrate how to take the quiz and complete any other required tasks.

Though my job title currently labels me an Application Architect, I have always been interested in web page design. I recognize that I’m not as talented as many of the rock star designers that are currently popular on the web, so I try to read what they read and publish. So recently, I’ve been surveying books on interaction design.

But sometimes you don’t have to read books or blog posts to recognize an obvious improvement in a site.

Someone I know (I promise its not me), recently took an online defensive driving course over the web. Such courses provide video or written content that you must pay attention to and then they quiz you to ensure that you’ve comprehended the material. To get credit for the course, you must be able to pass the quizzes.

Needless to say, the quiz interface design is critical since the quiz enables you to ultimately accomplish your goal of completing the course. However, this particular person was confused by the quiz question data entry. The answers were standard radio buttons, but the submit button was a non-standard image with a label that wasn’t intuitive. As such, the button wasn’t pressed and the alotted time for the question expired.

Now granted, this is not an egregious design failure. Once you miss one question, you figure it out quite readily on the next question. And if you are web savvy, you probably aren’t caught by this problem at all. But a more considered design might have done a couple of things to ensure users got off to a good start. First, if users are likely to be on the low end of web savvy, then use standard user interface controls (e.g. use the ugly gray button). Additionally, incorporate a test quiz into the flow to ensure that the user works through any usage issues. This enables them to work the kinks out while the stakes aren’t quite so high. Lastly, these days screencasts are all the rage. A brief video tour would demonstrate how to take the quiz and complete any other required tasks.