

User Interface Myths - edw519
http://carsonified.com/blog/design/top-10-ux-myths/

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billydean
Top 5 ways I feel about this article:

1) I

2) Hate

3) Top

4) 10

5) Lists

~~~
ugh
He could have left out the “Top 10” in the headline and all the numbers. Then,
I guess, you wouldn’t hate it anymore (at least if you don’t also have
something against ordinary lists), even though nothing has changed about the
content. Is that really the case?

(Please note that the author doesn’t claim that the myths are the definite ten
or something similarly grandiose – they are just his ten personal favorites.)

~~~
edw519
That's exactly how I felt, so I changed the title (which I rarely do) for
submission. This is interesting content which only becomes distracting by
putting it in a list.

No matter what you do, _someone_ will find the weakest link to pick on.
Reminds me of a few years ago when my mother gave me 2 sweaters for my
birthday. When I next saw her, I wore one of them and she said, "What's the
matter, don't you like the other one?"

~~~
jauco
Lol :) I can't believe that actually happened to you? I've been telling that
story for years as an example of how some people will never be satisfied.

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chrischen
"...but if you’re not familiar with it then enjoy the research and
storytelling of Barry Schwartz who discusses how too many options can not only
lead to your customers making no choice, but (counter-intuitively) resenting
the choices they do make."

That's _very_ true. And I think the best compromise/solution is to _hide_
advanced features/choices so that one click will still produce a great result,
but if someone needs more options that ability is still there.

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Semiapies
Oddly, I've never even heard of most of these myths.

~~~
joe_the_user
Or not oddly at all. He seems to have started with a set of rules he wanted to
put forward, negated them to create putative 'myths' and then tried to argue
back to his original points. So the whole thing reads like it was written
backwards...

Which frustrating, since _some_ of what he's saying is a little bit
interesting...

~~~
apsurd
Case in point:

 _Myth #1. The Design has to be Original.

"Truthfully, I don’t know if this one is a myth, or just a hard lesson for me
to learn..."_

What the hell? He admits he is not even sure of his own premise?

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tptacek
_The Linux approach, in my opinion, is the best of any platform. Other
platforms don’t offer such a seamless experience; I’m looking at you OS X, and
your confusing virtual disk image installation method._

Huh? The installation mechanism on OS X for 99% of apps is literally "click
icon, drag to desktop".

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parkotron
Do we really need to give carsonified the oxygen of publicity? This article is
on par with "websites are dead. use channels like twitter, facebook for self
promotion" (I think they are too serious to get the irony) which was a real
gem in self-gratifying internet detritus.

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onreact-com
This article uses the word "myth" while rebuking some best practices of the
trade. While it's a good read it mostly relies on stirring controversy. That
makes it less valuable and trustworthy. For instance "Design to Avoid Clicks"
is not a myth but common sense. In case you "overly optimized" (like having no
clicks at all?) your interface you end up less user friendly than with a 10
clicks before reaching your goal app or site? I doubt that.

