James Frazer: Yes I'm Boring.

After 20+ years (yes I'm inventing this number) of the GUI, one would think by now that we can figure out WHY modal buttons are bad. I would like to describe a UI blunder that is so deeply rooted in evil that any designer that uses it should be sent immediately to designer hell.

Example: The modal play button (or really any modal button for that matter). The idea behind this moronic design is that you save 25x25 pixels of space if you combine the function of play and pause in the same button. When the play button is invoked it changes form and functionality to that of a pause button... pretty useful right? WRONG. Here are the reasons:

1. Confusion as Status Indicator: A large percentage of users will mistake the button change as a status change. Clicking play shows pause, and a clear confusion between status and function will develop. He will be left with the questions: "what the hell did I just do? did I pause it or will I pause it if I click again?" ... The only way to know is to await response from the video/audio itself, and that has problems of its own:

2. The Unresponsive System (pt1: the user hijack): Users of unresponsive systems (which seems to include all systems) have developed a habit of clicking things twice (or sometimes more) to ensure that the message ends up reaching the desired component. The problem with this is that if you click a dual-mode play/pause button twice you end up right back where you started, and it seems as though nothing happened, confusing the user, and reinforcing the idea that the system is unresponsive.

3. The Unresponsive System (pt2: the system sucks): Of course the logical reason for #2 is that systems are in fact unresponsive, or give the appearance of unresponsive. A two second pause, although on paper is short, is very long in UI terms. Any suggestion that the system has not received the message WILL result in the user clicking a second time and will have the exact same effect as #2 -- it will reinforce the user's habits, and enrage him if he finds out what's going on. Causes for lack of response include:

   • Background processes stealing too many resources.
   • Media delays with no video/audio for the first few seconds give the appearance of an unresponsive system.
   • Flaws in media that cause it to freeze.
   • The application being slow at opening new files.

These are all examples of why this is a moronic design. Most people have monitors greater than 100x100px, so I don't think there's any justification for trying to save the space at the expensive of usability.

Advocates of the modal design might suggest "well we can have a more verbal indicator to show the status" and therefore think they've solved the problem -- like what? maybe a big green flashing indicator in the place of the more logical button they removed?

posted at: 11:10 | path: /UI-Design | permanent link to this entry

For the time being this website is going to be awfully boring. The reason for this is that I have grown tired of the complicated and (in my opinion) poorly designed web technologies which make up the websites of today.

Maybe in the future I will make the site more exciting, but at the moment I want to be able to focus on content and content alone. For this reason I have removed my old website so that I can get back to my roots as a content creator.

posted at: 08:46 | path: / | permanent link to this entry