• No page titles in favour of the browser window's title bar
• Feed Autodiscovery in favour of RSS/Atom feed buttons and links
• Navigation aids in favour of previous/next links
• OpenSearch in favour of a search form

Another classic example of redundant functionality is the "print this page" link that you'll still easily find littering the web. Bonus annoyance points for launching a popup window. The intention behind this madness is to provide the user with a print-friendly version of the page content. But with today's modern web browsers, the best practice is of course to support CSS media types for multiple devices. A print style sheet is very easy to create, test and implement. And if you don't like multiple style sheets, you can include your print rules in your global file to reduce server requests.

Some more quick examples of redundant functionality:

• controls to adjust text sizes
• "make this your home page" links
• "launch external links in a new window" option
• displaying the current date and time

Duplicating browser functionality in-page dumbs down the experience into a cross-browser compliancy mess. The practice of shifting user control from the page to the browser is very tempting for a number of reasons:

1. The consistency of the user experience is improved across the web. This is huge. Users don't need to waste time hunting for a search form, pagination, feed links or print controls if they know where to find these in one standard place within their browser. Both Firefox 2+ and IE7+ support OpenSearch - imagine how much more improved the implementations could be in the context of this post.
2. Users become instinctively more familiar with the powerful possibilities provided by their web browser, and potentially their PC's applications in general.
3. By reducing the amount of JavaScript on the page (which is responsible for reproducing most of the functionality), you're reducing the potential for scripting-related issues to occur.
4. It frees up valuable screen space for more appropriate and useful content.

Although still a work in progress, Mark's approach is drastic and for most practical purposes, unrealistic. I love that it's progressive and places focus on the content (a topic I've been meaning to blog about for quite a while) - it's almost a glimpse into the web of the future. But it suffers with no backward compatibility. He also mentions that some of his decisions aren't user-centered but rather personal-related, as bizarre and self-defeating as that sounds. On his new archives page:

If you like it too, that’s nice, but I don’t care about your opinion nearly as much as you might think.

His commenting system currently only supports OpenID users, so as an Anonymous user, I left the following thought (I can't remember where I first read this, and I can't find it elsewhere either, so no credit unfortunately):

Less is more. Until more is less.

I've integrated this one liner into my creative thought process, which I hope is obvious on this site. There's a fine line between overdesigning, or providing so much to the point that the experience becomes overwhelming, and underdesigning, or simplifying to the point that the most basic design concepts (heirarchy, navigation, accessibility) are compromised. Finding a balance isn't a complicated or challenging task, it just requires insight and carefully considered planning.

Second-guessing every detail is a good place to start if you have an existing site. Question what value it serves to your users, if at all, and if that value justifies its position on the page. I think the biggest mistake we make is to add stuff to our designs that we see elsewhere, without considering it in our own unique context. Just because John has a feed icon the size of a house in his sidebar, doesn't necessarily translate to more subscribers. In my eyes it screams of desperation.

My blog sidebar is a perfect example of where I've applied this thinking: I have plenty of vertical white space to litter and decorate it with all kinds of non-essential content, banners and buttons, but I know that will detract from the overall experience so I choose not to. I only show what I think it relevant to the content on that particular page and useful to the reader.

My footer is also designed to be as simple as possible. Many site footers brag about the W3C web standards-compliancy of their HTML markup or style sheets. Tech-related footers brag about the time it took for the page to render on their server. I used to think this was all useful or fun myself, but that was when it still mattered. If that information is really worth sharing, include it on a separate "about" page.

I'd even be willing to argue the usefulness of the popular "back to top" link, but I suspect it has a newfound place on mobile devices or is required by assistive technologies, in which case it should only be visible in those instances.

The web, however you prefer to tag or version it, is forever evolving and maturing. But the adoption of new ideas will unfortunately always rely on usage patterns evolving with it.

It's unfair to argue that it's the sole responsibility of any user to familiarise themselves with the necessary skills and tools required to become a comfortably proficient web user in the first place. And as the current online trends reveal, some unfortunate and regretful decisions by those of us building the web over the years have already suppressed the perfect user experience. For now, at least.

(Side-note: I have a particular site in mind that partly prompted this post, but I'll leave that for a follow-up.)

The oldies continue to be goodies - or rather, baddies - in the list of design stupidities that irked users the most in 2005.

There's value in reminding ourselves of past findings and raising their priority on the agenda of things to be fixed. Because these mistakes continue to be so common, it makes sense that people continue to complain about them the most.

Number 10, Inadequate Photo Enlargement, really gets on my tits! Number 9 follows close behind: Frozen Layouts with Fixed Page Widths. Or more specifically, a fixed width layout that was designed to fit an 800x600 viewport but forces a horizontal scrollbar anyway.

A good usability check list.

Or look at the iPod. You can't change the battery. So when the battery dies, too bad. Get a new iPod. Actually, Apple will replace it if you send it back to the factory, but that costs $65.95. Wowza.

Why can't you change the battery?

My theory is that it's because Apple didn't want to mar the otherwise perfectly smooth, seamless surface of their beautiful, sexy iPod with one of those ghastly battery covers you see on other cheapo consumer crap, with the little latches that are always breaking and the seams that fill up with pocket lint and all that general yuckiness. The iPod is the most seamless piece of consumer electronics I have ever seen. It's beautiful. It feels beautiful, like a smooth river stone. One battery latch can blow the whole river stone effect.

Apple made a decision based on style, in fact, iPod is full of decisions that are based on style. And style is not something that 100 programmers at Microsoft or 200 industrial designers at the inaptly-named Creative are going to be able to achieve, because they don't have Jonathan Ive, and there aren't a heck of a lot of Jonathan Ives floating around.

I'm sorry, I can't stop talking about the iPod. That beautiful thumbwheel with its little clicky sounds ... Apple spent extra money putting a speaker in the iPod itself so that the thumbwheel clicky sounds would come from the thumbwheel. They could have saved pennies ... pennies! by playing the clicky sounds through the headphones. But the thumbwheel makes you feel like you're in control. People like to feel in control. It makes people happy to feel in control. The fact that the thumbwheel responds smoothly, fluently, and audibly to your commands makes you happy. Not like the other 6,000 pocket-sized consumer electronics bit of junk which take so long booting up that when you hit the on/off switch you have to wait a minute to find out if anything happened. Are you in control? Who knows? When was the last time you had a cell phone that went on the instant you pressed the on button?

Listed on netdiver's Best of the Year 2004 page, AmoebaCorp: Graphic Design and Visual Communications Company in Toronto. I only clicked on their listing because I've always liked the name. Say it with me, "amoeba"..."amoeba"..."a-m-o-e-b-a-a-a-a"... ok! Moving on...

Unique, innovative, stellar concept and craftmanship - is not how I would categorize them. I've never encountered a website with such a frustrating and pointless site-wide navigation system. You'll probably check it out now. It will resize and reposition your web browser window. That might annoy you. After making a silly decision on their splash screen - you choose the Flash option (yes, Flash 7) because it's more prominent and "rock and roll" - it will launch in a popup window. That might annoy you. The popup window might be blocked by your browser. That will annoy you.

So you're finally in the site? Great - let's play a game!
Before we start, I suggest you disable the sound in the top right corner by clicking on the N. It doesn't really disable the sound, it just gets rid of the music. I guarantee, after the novelty of those bleeps and distorted frog croaks wears off, it will drive you insane.

+10 points if you can figure out how the navigation works; -10 points if you develop a headache trying. +10 points if you can navigate to the "contact" page on first attempt; -10 points if you land up somewhere else or get stuck in some other section for over a minute.

In retrospect, this example is probably better classified as a "were they even thinking?" kind of design.

First impressions last, and this was mine - a poorly designed page reading:

The site you have tried to enter requires Internet Explorer 6 (or better) with Windows Media Player 7 (or better) on Windows XP, 2000, Me or 98. Click Here to use our Doctor Download application to help you check your configuration alternatively Email Dr Download.

Right then. So we already know about the dangers of taking this Microsoft-centric approach; I won't go into that again. But what's this "Doctor Download" stuff? Can I trust it? I clicked on the ignorantly-named "Here" link and received a popup window with the following:

We're Sorry! There has been a problem that means you can't continue. The problem code is: 200501050143446657...

Truly helpful. Next, I decided to dig around behind the scenes using IE 6, their single browser of choice. Musica use frames (ack) to disguise the real URL of the site. It turns out that the entire service is provided and hosted by OD2: On Demand Distribution, who manage a diverse set of on-line retailers (I counted over 40). All of which are built with the same Microsoft-only requirements. In fact, they haven't even done a very good job of explaining the relationship between themselves and Musica on the site. If you browse the FAQ, under the "Who are we" section:

We are On Demand Distribution Plc, registered in England, No. 3935034

In other words, "we're not Musica". Isn't there something called client trust? Isn't it most important on this largely insecure, phishing-rife commerce medium we call the Internet? Questions Musica should be asking themselves. No mention is made by OD2 in their FAQ about their affiliation with Musica, so who are you really dealing with?

I should mention, as a side-note, that using frames will prevent their users from bookmarking favouriting a page - their favourite Artist, for example. Unless they're advanced enough (I wouldn't count on it) to know that right-clicking a link to that Artist and selecting "Add to Favourites.." is the only way they'll be able to shortcut to that page in future.

Another interesting observation: one of their PC Requirements is that you don't have any Popup Blockers installed. They claim that their site doesn't work without popups. Now that's rich.

I've e-mailed Musica (or is that OD2?) for an explanation on why their site is targetted at a Microsoft-only audience.

Favourite song of the moment: BT - Circles.

UPDATE [06/01]: allAfrica.com feature a December article on the store: 'Musica Joins Download Revolution', and mention how "This legal downloading of music might boost the already booming MP3 market". MP3, you say? The Musica Store only offers 128kbps WMA downloads.

Further reading:

• 'Loudeye Powers Its First Music Download Store in South Africa', via Yahoo! Financial News - 13 December, 2004
• 'SA gets large-scale music download site', via Mail and Guardian - 13 December, 2004
• 'SA: Download music for R10', via News24.com - 14 December, 2004

I started a new Firefox theme this weekend. It remains to be seen how far I'll get. The Firefox project is approaching a milestone 1.0 release and it would be nice to have it done by then. In the meantime, check out Charamel - quite nice, if you don't mind those colours.

Amazon.com interestingly don't let you bookmark a search result. For example, returning to a search result URL - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-form/103-6278745-5746238 - displays a page claiming that there appears to be a bug in the web browser you are currently using. It would be nice if they could design their search application to accept query strings for bookmarking purposes, and if that's too much trouble, at least not blame the user's browser for their shortcomings.

This is the article to give to your boss or anyone else who doesn't have much time, but needs to know the basic usability facts.

Surfing some websites, I stumbled upon the site for Agency Republic via ventilate.ca. This website is a prime example of why popup windows, married with a web browser that has built-in ad blocking capability, are becoming increasingly useless in terms of reaching a maximum audience.

I have popup windows disabled in my browser. When I visit a site that tries to launch a popup window, I receive an alert in the status bar - clicking on this alert gives me the option to add this site to a list which in future will be allowed to launch unrequested popups.

The problem with the Agency Republic site however, is that they redirect across three domain names in the process to launch the site in a popup. ie. agencyrepublic.com redirects to agencyrepublic.com.futuresite.register.com which in turn links to arepublic.com - all within a frameset. Which made it virtually impossible for me to view the site without viewing the source of the pages to find the URLs.

How annoying. If you need to create a popup window, at least do it properly.

More games to make your day at work even less productive: The Lego Treasure Hunt by Martin Sears, and Operation Slaps by NWYH.

Update your virus definitions: W32.Blaster.Worm has arrived.