I want some inspiration and ideas to implement in my web designing skills. Searching traditional and boring ideas on the internet was giving no help. So, I headed out to get them from something ordinary.
And here is what I learned from usability taps.
Why Should You Load The Unnecessary Information?
The most common taps I encounter are some infrared taps. You only need to place your hands underneath, and the water will flow down. But some of them have loads of information on top of it. I mean, why would someone bother to read them all. Although they are to guide people, he’ll figure it out if someone has a problem.
The Lessons
Too much help text for the visitors on the first page gives a bad user experience. If you have already told them what problems they could face, they will bounce back immediately. If you feel the page is loading with a lot of help text, restart from scratch.
Why Canāt You Keep Things At First Glance?
In my exploration, I happened to ride Virgin Trains and took a tour of their bathrooms. There was an extended sign indicating dryer, water, and soap with arrows, but where are they? I bend down to take a first look at them. Also, washing hands was nothing but blindly sensing the remaining soap on them.
The Lesson
What is the next thing people do when they visit your page? Scroll, of course! But making them do it to give them vital information is not good. They should see the most important thing right when they land on the page, instead of a large header menu covering the whole screen.
Why Canāt Everybody Use Everything Even If Downgrading?
I stumble onto two taps on a sink, one that doesn’t have a hot/cold indicator. Letās presume the other loses its indicator too, and guess what? People wonāt know which tap is for hot and which is for cold water? And they are more likely to know after burning or freezing their hands.
The Lesson
If your web page uses javascript to function, donāt make it the only way to function. Make your pages operable even without JS. If someone visits your web page and doesn’t support javascript in mobile, then how will he stay there?
Why Canāt You Make It Easily Readable?
In a local public toilet, I saw rotating taps. The good thing was they had hot and cold water, but the bad thing was the font was too tiny to read. At least give people enough visibility to get the right temperature water. What was worse? The hot and cold text was harder to read with water droplets.
The Lesson
The readability of websites is as essential as the typography. People donāt need to zoom in the text too much to read it. The most suitable size is 16 px or 12 pt for the text, as people could easily understand every written word.
Donāt make it in the tiniest pixel as the zooming in also affects the web pageās layout. The reader’s eyes donāt get much strain or confused by the distorted layout when they read something in expanded form.
Why Donāt Test It Before Finalising?
A weird tap made me feel like I’m in sailors or probably pirates. It has a white blob-like handle on one side of the pivot and a pointed end on the other side. But the worst experience was the testing.
The pointed end was on nothing but the text ātepid.ā When I turned it to cold, I got hot water because the blob handle was over hot. The same thing happened to hot, as it gives cold water. So, you will get the temperature which the blob is hidingāstupidity at its best.
The Lesson
When you implement something on the web page, test it out with real users before making it live. The best option is doing A/B testing, but do anything to test your designs before finalising. Otherwise, people leave your site laughing.
Why Canāt All Be Synchronising And Same?
On my exciting expedition, I hit two taps. I opened one, and it was giving cold water. Well! I turned to the other, and it stuck. After a few seconds, I realised it was the anti-version of the former. One turns clockwise, while the other turns anti-clockwise. Thatās a great couple (Iām not taunting)
The Lesson
Every website you work on should reflect the same signature. On your own site, there should be consistency throughout the pages. People should feel the same at the top, bottom, and on the other pages or your designed websites. It helps a lot in user experience.
Why Confuse Others With Indicators/Instructions?
Then lastly, I found usability taps with some confusing feedback. They were rotating taps with red and blue coloured indicators or letters H for hot and C for cold. The problem was their operation.
If I turned the tap to the H or red side, it disappeared, and the C or blue side was visible. So, what does it mean? Am I getting hot water or cold? Although Iād figure it out as soon as I put my hands in the water, for a moment, I would be confused.
The Lesson
Let your visitors know what they are exactly doing and what they have already done on the page. They should know that they have visited this link due to its changed colour. Links that donāt change colour after visiting often causes problems like revisiting.
The same should happen with the buttons, as they should show some animations, effects, or colour changes when they hover the mouse over them. A bar or moving circle should inform them if something is loading or processing.
Also, if the users fill a form and miss something or make a mistake, an error should inform them about it and better tell them how they can remove the error.
Another critical factor to consider is that your hyperlinked heading should not have the same colour or format as those that are not. Although the mouse pointer will tell them when they hover over it, the users should know it beforehand.
Final Thoughts
In my fabulous journey, I stumbled onto many unique usability taps. And each one taught me something about web designing differently.
Hence, you will get inspiration from normal surrounding things, if you observe them closely.
