Hot answers tagged consistency
32
Definately keep the order of the buttons the same on all parts. There is nothing more disturbing than clicking a delete button where on the previous page there was a edit button.
As for the order, I would suggest ordering them by what you want users to click most often. Use UI design to guide the application user.
14
It is best to order them logically and group similar actions together. In your case with only three, the order that you have them now is good.
However one thing that you really should do it to move the delete button away so that it is not with other action buttons. I would place it aligned to the right to reduce the likelihood that it is accidentally ...
12
I have conducted a study recently to ascertain whether a click menu or hover menu is more suitable for one of our larger financial client sites... these are my findings. I hope they are of some use or help to you:
In summary:
In general, hover menus are indeed expected behaviour on most sites, however it should be duly noted that on sites that are ...
10
Option 1 by far.
Please tell them that mouse distance is only one of many UX factors that need considered.
Scan-ability - Knowing that the buttons are always at the bottom will cut out a lot of cognation and time for the user.
Who says the users curser will start from the top? Think about where your curser is right now? is it near the top? or the middle ...
10
Regarding Microsoft abandoning adaptive menus when creating Office 2007, have a look at this video with principal group program manager on the Microsoft Office UX team Jensen Harris:
The Story of the Ribbon (at around 07:45)
10
You need skeuomorphs for a new technology. It trumps OS consistency in that respect. But, above and beyond that, OS consistency is more important.
Found an article which resonated with my views. Ignore the MS vs Apple thing.
http://www.cultofmac.com/180084/where-microsoft-has-more-taste-than-apple/
Traditionally, skeuomorphic design has been used to ...
10
2007 article from NN/g Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful
Summary: One line of text shows a page's location in the site hierarchy. User testing shows many benefits and no downsides to breadcrumbs for secondary navigation.
Consistency is a key principle for UX design. If you implement breadcrumb for some pages and not for others, you are breaking ...
9
I agree that for this design (Programmers.SE) there should be an outline on the check mark, as there is one on the up and down vote buttons. This would make it look more consistent as well as clear. Also, the check mark should have a less "polished" look to it, maybe more rough marker-like swish.
9
Users will notice.
Interfaces that display the same information in different ways increases the cognitive load placed upon the user which makes the experience inefficient.
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Allowing the user's eye to track vertically along a continuous line is a visual guide you provide which tells ...
8
Yes, it is using the right affordance (to be consistent with OSX Lion).
This is slightly confusing implementation of what I think they are trying to achieve. I agree, it does look like the slider/switch control used in iOS. Sad news is, this is what OSX Lion is going to look like. They are changing the look of these "tabbed" controls. See below:
At this ...
8
The "Log In" form is where most people have come to expect to find it, and that makes the choice logical. They would have to have a good reason to put it anywhere else.
The "Sign Up" form on the other hand is the focus of the page, and is laid out in a way that makes the most sense for that task. Once again a good choice.
Consistency is a good thing, as ...
8
Yes, if there is a good reason to have two different style forms.
Remember that you should break any UX guideline when you have a good reason to. Consistency is one of those, but it is one that you should look at carefully before breaking it.
The biggest test is going to be whether users find it odd or problematic. Make your decision primarily from what ...
7
I think you have to consider two things:
Learnability does work in certain cases. Good article on this subject: When is learnability more important than usability?
This site is for web professionals and not for average users
7
Somewhere near the end of the thesis they reference a paper from 2004 which discusses this very subject. A comparison of static, adaptive, and adaptable menus.
abstract
Software applications continue to grow in terms of the number of
features they offer, making personalization increasingly important.
Research has shown that most users prefer the ...
7
Consistency for the sake of consistency alone is ... silly. The navigation should match the content available, not conform to some arbitrary rules. People are well enough aware of how drop-down menus work at this point.
If there is an arrow pointing down next to a navigation label, users will expect sub-menus. No arrows, no sub-menus. If there is a concern ...
7
I don't recall a common name for the rule, but I found two definitions of the situation that you're trying to prevent:
In software, when words have several meanings, this is called overloading. Your rule would be 'avoid overloading names/words'.
Ambiguity is a more general term for the same thing. So the rule could be 'use unambiguous names /words/terms' ...
7
Considder if you can't change your design a bit further than by just changing the ordering of your buttons. Ask yourself if the buttons really make sense in the first place.
You currently have two types of buttons above your list: one button that creates a new item in the list, and two buttons that act on the currently selected item. The item has to be ...
7
The size (length) of a field is a matter of usability in that it can provide a valuable affordance to the user.
Take the following example:
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Even without labels you can probably guess what the fields are:
download bmml source
Obligatory Wroblewsky quote (The above example ...
7
Choose the buttons to be primary or secondary depending upon the context of the page. Your buttons must align with the objective of the page and the styling,design and placement must be done accordingly to ensure that they help the page achieve its objective.
To quote this article about call to actions
Choose contrasting colors and size your ...
6
The goal in designing any artifact is to make the design as useful and satisfying as possible. If you find out that you beaked a convention or two along the way is subordinate to the ultimate goal of usefulness and satisfaction. The goal can never be to break the convention in itself.
Consistency is key but that is within the domain of the particular ...
6
There is a principle in cognitive science that we feel a loss of something far more than we would feel a gain of that same thing. So if I give you 10% progress, and then take away 10% progress, from a human perspective I'm more like -20% than where the maths would tell me.
Besides the cognitive science aspect above, you should avoid doing anything that ...
6
Disable (grey out) stuff that's not applicable, don't hide it...
Unless it is a security/user permission level (e.g., sysadmin vs programmer, manager vs. employee - same person sees same thing always).
This is assuming what you mean by 'over time' is that previous context causes the items to be applicable or not.
We ran across the exact issue and if ...
5
Anything that adds cognitive load should be avoided. Different looks (alignment in this case) may get user to think about other things than you want them to. This is especially true in the checkout process of an e-commerce site.
Imagine a user on step four of five starts to think about why the background suddenly changed, why the logo was omitted, or why ...
4
Option 1 by a mile.
It looks nicer and the reading speed will be far higher. It's much quicker to take in that all three buttons say exactly the same thing. There is no confusion about whether the third button is an option or a continue button.
With a small target like this continue button the time to move the mouse is dominated by the acceleration and ...
4
From a simplicity design perspective, makes sense that the user behavior will simplify the interface and makes his life easier down the road (because all the options has been funneled down to only the useful ones). Recommended book: Simple and Usable by Gilles Colborne.
But, I agree on your concern, what if the adaption of the interface end up on a ...
4
I would like to recommend doing away with the save button all together. If you have the capability of using ajax to update lists with multiple commands, then why not use ajax for all the other tabs as well (saving as the user types, or finding a way to catch when the users has stopped typing to save)?
Advantages:
Total consistency throughout the tab ...
4
In my opinion New is very different from Edit and Delete, as it does not require an item to be selected.
Edit and Delete refer to some item, thus should kept hidden while no item is selected, and shown in a different position from New. If you really can't put them inside the list, consider putting them on the side.
I usually like to put the New (or Add, +, ...
4
It's a mostly a matter of design, not usability there. The main issue is that they are left aligned (for left to right languages), and not that they are all the same length.
I would however argue that it is better to make a field for which you know the length of the content (like a postcode) about as long as the content would be. Making it longer may hint ...
3
Maybe Terminology standardisation?
In the book Language, culture and communication in contemporary Europe, by Charlotte Hoffmann, she writes:
3
Should you break established conventions and user-expectations in order for your site to be consistent across devices?
The only time I could envision this being a GOOD thing is if your end-users, for some weird reason, are always using multiple devices to access the tool. But I can't think of too many cases where that'd be useful.
This is a common ...
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