[Sigia-l] Defeated by Orthodoxy, again

[Paola Kathuria]

Ziya Oz quoted:
> "The big lesson here is the need to stick with the design conventions that
> users know."
>
> <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/dialog-box.html>

This marks the thin line between chaos and progress.

There are some de facto standards that just aint worth
messing with. However, some things *have* to change for
the sake of progress.

For example, I remember arguing the case in 2000 on SIG-IA
for right-hand navigation. There was resistance.

But then we've also had rows here about 100% Flash web
sites where people have railed against the old fogies,
saying "let us young people lead the way - it's progress!"

That all said, (internal) consistency and simplicity are
very important.  If, say, there is a difference in text
colour, size or typeface, there must be a logical reason
for it (other than "it looks nice").

For example, a house style rule that "links in the side
nav are black" means that any other kind of text there
*mustn't* be black. Compare against the recently posted
example of http://beta.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=18651
where links on the right are both blue AND black, and
some black text isn't linked. Feh.


Paola
--
http://www.paolability.com/