• 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.)

Here is today's quote, for example:

Content makes the sale, delivers the service and builds the brand. The architecture is the container of the website, but content—well, it’s the content in the container. We don’t buy from iTunes because of its architecture; we buy because of its music. Great information architecture is invisible so that the content can shine through. - Gerry McGovern

Each quote is also published in a useful quote card format for download and print. Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Inspireux

And while I'm here, don't forget to get involved in Firefox Download Day 2008 which is officially happening this coming Tuesday, 17 June.

Pledge to get Firefox 3 during Download Day to set the Guinness World Record for Most Software Downloaded in 24 Hours. It's a fun cause, and you'll be doing yourself a favour at the same time. With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than before.

At the time of writing this, there are 1,154,980 total pledges worldwide, 3,720 of which belong to South Africa.

Ch-ch-check it out!

The first thing I noticed were the 'Font size' and 'Tool Box' widgets featured prominently in the right-hand column. Clicking on either of the 'A' graphics alongside the 'Font size' item does what one would expect - the HTML text on the page is increased/decreased in size. Several flaws, though:

a) There are only two sizes to choose from - unlike for example, wired.com, which has four.
b) The difference between the two sizes is not significant enough to make the function useful to anyone who would use it in the first place.
c) The size you choose is not remembered when you navigate to another page, so you'd have to keep changing it every time if the small difference it makes really mattered to you.

As for the 'Tool box' widgets, "Add to Favourites" and "Make Me your home page": it's a big trend for sites to include these options in their design, even though they are native functions of the Browser UI - including changing the 'Font size'. Why replicate something in your site design that is already accessible via the browser and works so much better?

FYI, the "open external links in a new window" widget on my site, which wasn't working properly anyway (I modified it at some stage based on this article), is also an existing implementation in most modern browsers - users just need to learn that it's there.