5.12.2008

user experience on web

from my experience, the single most important variable in web user experience has little to do with the user interface itself, and it’s probably the one thing interaction/interface designers have little control over - it’s the speed.

The web is a hostile development environment. The speed bottleneck of many web applications is either that the server(s) could not handle the load or the limitation of users internet bandwidth. If your web site or application is not responsive to user interactions, has slow loading time or graphic elements load like a teleprompter, then I afraid all the efforts that go into paper prototyping, personas creation, AB testing and other HCI methods will go down the drain as well.

Most of the time, even a slight speed bump may result in major experience improvement. And there are several ways to provide ‘fake’ speed improvement: by constantly updating your users about the state of their interaction. Notify them whenever something has been accomplished, something is about to happen or something is wrong. Communication is the best way to interact, in marriage or designing UI :P.

So remember, work along side your developers to make sure your apps are cheetah-certified.

Filed under design.