When can UX best practices be ignored?

Question

I suppose you could rephrase this question as "When can design supersede User Experience?"

I've just designed a Nav bar that goes against everything I stand for as a UX Professional, yet I feel I can justify forgoing best practices here given the websites audience.

Here's a quick snapshot to give you an idea of what I mean:

As you can see, each nav item is bunched up against the next. Making it a tad difficult to read. The target audience of the site however, is the young professional male, typically well versed in the ways of the internet and technology. And this gives me the confidence that the user will quickly identify this function and use it appropriately.

So does this justify a design that ignores best practices of UX?

When can it ever?

Answer 1

A good designer knows the rules. A great designer knows when the rules can or should be broken. And if you can justify it, then go for it.

UX certainly allows for more mysterious paths and interfaces. It's the exception, rather than the norm, but if you can justify the exception, go for it.

A mini-critique of your sample: The ampersand should be removed. It sticks out way too much and ruins the 'mashup' flow. I suggest removing it altogether but, if you keep it, use the same typeface as the rest of the words.

The first line is also a bit problematic in that you can't quite tell if it's sport|cars|tech or if it is sportcars|tech (either way, I think sport needs to be 'sports'). But perhaps that can be resolved via the interaction design.

Answer 2

In general, UX is not about artistic self-expression, but about users.

You can try to use scriptio continua for an aesthetic effect, however, I'd recommend using it only for title text, as people will have a hard time each time they try to actually navigate the page.

It's simple: navigation will not only be read, but it is to be used as signposts as well. It can be, that there are people who are interested only in, let's say, cars on your site. Their plan is to come and each time, click on the "car" link immediately.

However, they'll have a hard time to find where does car begin, and again-and-again they have to read and interpret the text letter-by-letter.

Modern studies have shown that people who read frequently are reading word-by-word, that is, they recognize a whole word at once, not constructing it letter by letter.

Now imagine reading like a 6-year-old every time you want to actually navigate on the site.

Run user tests if you wish to see if it's acceptable for your target audience, but in general, a navigation item is not only an element of artistic expression, but an everyday tool to use.

I think, just like the more often we use a tool, the more it is driven by function rather than aesthetics ever since the bauhaus, the same goes to our virtual devices.