by Dmitry Fadeyev* [usabilitypost]

I’m not really an expert at cooking but I do love to watch professionals cook. I mean Michelin star level professionals. What these guys produce is really amazing and its also interesting to see just how much work some of these dishes involve and how many unique techniques are used. It’s not just food really, it’s art. Some art is there to be seen: paintings, some art is to be listened to: music, and some art is to be tasted. Anyhow… what does all this have to do with websites?

Well, what I do find interesting is that I’m seeing several parallels between cooking and designing interfaces and websites. Let’s see…

1. You need to pick complementary flavors
Creating a Michelin star winning dish requires a naturally good palate. You need to know how flavors come together in order to create a fusion that works. Choose the wrong ingredient and you could ruin the whole dish.

In web design you need to be able to create a design that works as a whole; when all the elements are sliced and coded it must come together as a coherent page, with each element reinforcing the other. Keeping a consistent theme is crucial, as is picking a color palette that works.

2. It’s all about the flavor of the main ingredients
Each dish has a star ingredient, be it the delicate scallop, or the hearty fillet of beef; everything else on the plate works to bring out its flavor. All the other elements should support that main ingredient and work to bring out its flavor. If there are too many other things on the plate, or the other flavors are overpowering, the main ingredient becomes in danger of getting lost.

Your web design is a user interface, and as such it’s an interface to something. That something is of course the site’s content. The content should always be the star, not the design (unless it’s a portfolio site where the site itself is often part of the content). A good interface works to bring out the content, make sense of it, and ultimately fade away.

3. Taste and presentation both matter
If you go to a restaurant, you expect your food to look good as well as taste good. These elements are part of delivering an experience. If the food tastes fantastic but looks like dog’s dinner then the experience is ruined.

Similarly, if the content on a website is great, but the interface is ugly, then you may still use the site but the user experience won’t be at a level that it could be. On the other side, fantastic design coupled with bad content just isn’t going to deliver. However, when you achieve a fusion of great design and great content you deliver a user experience that your visitors will enjoy and remember, which is sure to bring them back again and again.

4. Too many things on the plate confuse the palate
A good dish has a theme — a selection of flavors combined together with a direction and intent; a fusion that delivers a unique experience. Ingredients must be chosen well so that they go complement and reinforce each other. If you put too many ingredients on the plate then you risk confusing the palate as the dish becomes a cacophony of tastes.

The same is true in design. Too many fonts destroy the typographical theme of the page. Too many colors dilute the brand. Too much content makes the page difficult to digest. Don’t rush into styling everything or adding everything you can think of. Approach your web design with a strategic stance. What’s your branding — what color should dominate? What is the main font that you’re going to use and why? What should the reader get from this page? What don’t they want?

5. It takes restraint and confidence to achieve simplicity
A dish that looks simple doesn’t mean it will taste simple or deliver little. Simplicity has an elegance of its own.

Designing simple websites and interfaces is all about restraint. Yes, you can utilize the latest trends and Photoshop skills, you can add gradients, wet floors and highlights — but does the design really need it? What value do these things add, if any? Reducing a design to its most basic components and arranging them in a simple and elegant fashion isn’t easy — it’s very hard. Minimalism is beautiful because everything on the page is there for a reason, nothing is superfluous, and when form is so tightly wrapped around function the results are beautiful.

*Dmitry is a co-founder of Pixelshell web design studio. His latest project is called the Themes Boutique, a WordPress theme store. Other projects include Logospire, which is a user powered logo inspiration gallery. Dmitry also has a personal blog at Fadeyev.net

Este livro de John S. Rhodes não trata sobre usabilidade e experiência do usuário. Você não vai achar neste livro metodologias, manuais ou cases destes assuntos.

O livro é dirigido a pessoas que já sabem tudo (ou muito) sobre o assunto.

Mas pra que serve então?

Serve para dar dicas de como vender estas ideias.Como chegar até a mente dos stakeholders e conseguir a aprovação das suas ações e metodologias sem ter de explicá-las.

Enfim, o livro é indicado para profissionais da área da usabilidade que estão com dificuldades de justificar o seu trabalho.

O website www.usabilitybok.org apresenta uma introdução às áreas que serão eventualmente incluídas no Usability Body of Knowledge e dá uma idéia do que está por vir.

É importante deixar claro que o site ainda está sendo construído do ponto de vista de seu conteúdo e tem por objetivo coletar sugestões e críticas.

As áreas abordadas:

Métodos
Descrição de técnicas de usabilidade e design centrado no usuário (usability and user-centered design) para se estabelecer as necessidades dos usuários, identificar problemas de usabilidade e coleta de críticas e sugestões.

Design
Princípios e boas práticas para o design de interfaces fáceis de se usar.

Tópicos Organizacionais
Respostas a questões sobre gerenciamento de times de usabilidade, integração de usabilidade e softwares e uma introdução ao conceito de usabilidade.

Pesquisa
O que os interessados em usabilidade podem aprender com as pesquisas mais recentes e com as novidades da área? Existem novas evidências que confrontem o que sabemos até agora? Ou estudos que corroborem e reforcem o valor de métodos e técnicas já em uso? Estas são as questões que serão tratadas nesta seção.

Desenvolvimento Profissional
Oportunidades para aprender mais sobre usabilidade e para expandir as compet~encias profissionais nesta área.

E mais Áreas relacionadas, Indicação de Leitura e Glossário.