Simplicity Rules

Much of the Web relies on Javascript these days and thankfully most people have it on. If you’re creating a site for the general public, you still want to have a game-plan to deal with those surfing without it.

I looked at the top five travel booking sites, plus Yahoo! Travel, to see what they do. Booking travel is one activity I imagine is fairly consistent among all types of users. These six sites show a few different approaches to lack of Javascript.

The Security Gate Approach

Travelocity and Kayak both take a heavy-handed approach. They set up a security gate, where Javascript dogs sniff each incoming request. If Javascript is disabled, the guards kindly give you a customer alert.

Overall, I am against this option, but I can understand it. With only a small number of people without Javascript, it seems ridiculous to waste developer time being elegant. Toss up the security gate and be on your way.

While I never appreciate being told I have no choice, they provide clear instructions on fixing the problem. This is a simple solution without being too simplistic. Some sites that rely heavily on Javascript will probably need to use this method. A travel site probably isn’t that type of site.

The Deaf and Dumb Approach

The most common way to handle Javascript disabling is to ignore it. Any features on the site that use Javascript just won’t work. Depending on where the scripting is needed, you could be okay. Often it makes you look deaf to the user’s actions and dumb for not responding correctly.

Expedia, the largest travel booking site on the Internet, has a really big problem. When I click the ever-loving “Search for flights” button, nothing happens. My browser doesn’t move, because it isn’t doing anything.

The search button is activated by a function that can’t be called if Javascript is disabled.

Yahoo! Travel, which I expected to knock this out of the ballpark, gave the craziest error of all. No matter what dates I enter into the search, it tells me they are too far ahead–even when I use their dropdowns and keep the automatically-selected options of a date three weeks from now.

If you plan to rely heavily on Javascript, have a plan for dealing with the disablers. If you don’t, you could end up looking deaf and dumb.

The “It Just Works” Approach

Orbitz and CheapTickets just work. I typed in some airports and dates, clicked a button, and I saw itineraries with prices… just like I would expect from a travel site, regardless of Javascript.

Gerry McGovern with some great thoughts about simplicity on the Web:

We don’t pay for visiting a website with our money; we pay for it with our time. The longer we spend on a website the more we pay, so there is a strong motivation to spend as little time as possible.

A simple website charges you less time. A complex website charges you more time. Time is your most precious resource.

Sent to me by The Wheeze. Thanks to Beth Kanter for the photo.

The best presentation I saw at SXSW this year was by Peter Merholz. The title was “Stop Designing Products,” but the take-away was the experience is the product.

Merholz gave some examples of past technologies: cameras, automobiles. Early on, they are often tough to use. You had to develop your own film and be your own mechanic.

“Like a dog’s walking on his hind legs, it is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.” –Samuel Johnson

Then come features galore. Some of the fanciest VCRs still blink 12:00.

Merholz’s best example was George Eastman, who created the Kodak camera. No thick manual was required. “You press the button, we do the rest.”

Eastman understood the way people wanted to use their cameras. They didn’t want to know all the technology and they didn’t want to develop their pictures. They wanted it easy.

The money slides from the presentation were a set that show an abstracted version of your program. Data is at the core, with logic surrounding it, and the user interface on the outside. At least, that’s what we see. All the user sees is the UI. When done right, the rest is magic.

When designing, if you start with the data and move outwards, your program doesn’t understand the user. Instead, you have to start with the experience, because the experience is the product. Design from the outside in.

Merholz has slides available (38 MB PDF) of a longer version of this presentation.

Update: The audio from this SXSW talk is now available from their site.

Another update: Merholz’s talk is available as an article (with many of the same images from his talk).

Last update: The slides are now available in full presentation mode including audio.

Apparently twenty-somethings like to keep it simple, according to a recent survey of 100 “Generation Y trendsetters:”

Most of the companies cited by the respondents stress simplicity, says Brickley, who notes that many of their favorite companies, from giants such as Apple to smaller newcomers like Method, are known for keeping things as stripped-down and unadorned as possible - not just in terms of the product’s visual appearance but also in the way they organize their offerings.

Top five “trusted brands”
1. Apple
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Jet Blue
4. In-N-Out Burger
5. Ben & Jerry’s

See the top 15 and read the full article (via YPulse)

I happened upon interface design advice from a most unlikely source: Uber geek extraordinaire Eric Raymond. His take on interfaces is to apply the rule of least surprise.

“To design usable interfaces, it’s best when possible not to design an entire new interface model. Novelty is a barrier to entry; it puts a learning burden on the user, so minimize it. Instead, think carefully about the experience and knowledge of your user base. Try to find functional similarities between your program and programs they are likely to already know about. Then mimic the relevant parts of the existing interfaces.”

Obvious, maybe, but I love the way it’s phrased here. It’s general enough to be useful to anyone. Heck, it was written for Unix programmers, but I think anyone involved in the Web could get something from it.

For that matter, the whole thing looks pretty good. Jeff Veen lauds it as directly applicable to user experience, information architecture, and design. There’s even a Rule of Simplicity.

The whole thing is available online or in printed form. While you’re at it, check out Joel Spolsky’s excellent book with a similar angle: bringing usability to even the most technical things (and people).

My mom always said it’s easier to be happy than to be angry. When you’re upset, it certainly doesn’t feel that way. Happiness seems miles away, until you realize how much energy you’re spending being grumpy.

Similarly, it takes a lot of effort to penny-pinch and it’s pretty easy to be generous. The key is to find the stuff that doesn’t cost much more, but has a very positive effect.

• Noah spent today at a coffee shop. He witnessed enough “accidental” fancy drinks given away to realize it was instead a brilliant marketing plan.
• Seth has a pet peeve with small coins. When sales tax brings the price of something just above a dollar amount, we’re forced to dig into our pockets or get a heap of change back. His marketing advice: “Don’t worry about the nickel!”
• Jory received free donut holes while waiting in line at a restaurant. Later, she bought some ice cream, but was disappointed that there weren’t more sprinkles available.
• Sometimes I get some food from the deli at my local supermarket. There’s one lady who consistently gives a little bit extra. She spoons in the amount I request, weighs it, then adds another spoonful before closing the lid.

The truth is that it doesn’t cost these companies much more, nor does it take more effort. They are making much happier customers for a very small price.

My goal is to find a way to move these lessons to the web. Giving more should be even cheaper when all goods are virtual. How do we find the free fancy drinks, the nickels, the donuts, the sprinkles, and the extra scoop?

When you find one, implement it. Whatever it takes to do it will be made up in spades by how much people appreciate it.

For as long as I’ve used Facebook (last fall sometime), it has included a status feature. Like a Twitter message, it tells my friends what I’m up to. To enter a new one, I simply finish the sentence, “I am…” Then my friends see my status as, “Adam is…”

I have often found it strange that Facebook chose to tempt grammatical issues by switching from “am” to “is.” Granted, it’s a rare problem, but why be so tricky?

They subconsciously got the message from me, because they’ve made a change.

When changing status, I now see what other people will see. And that makes sense! Facebook stopped being tricky and has ended up with a feature that is never confusing.

I’ve been ruminating for awhile, years really, about how important programmers are to the Web. This thought on the blog software WordPress is part of an overall manifesto encouraging coders to be People’s Programmers. If you’d like to see this manifesto make its way to the masses, consider voting for it here.

The stuff that People’s Programmers put out gives power to non-technical people. The software behind Wikipedia has helped thousands of scholars share their knowledge. WordPress has done the same by making it pretty easy to set up a blog. More voices is better than fewer voices.

WordPress was hardly the first blogging software. Blogger and Moveable Type have been around nearly a decade. When I first starting writing about People’s Programmers, back in 2001, I even mentioned some other software, GreyMatter, that has now been forgotten by most.

WordPress is special in that, along with empowering the non-technical, it also teaches some to be technical. Wordpress creates programmers. Beyond that, it creates People’s Programmers.

Many would never have a blog if WordPress didn’t exist. A few of those would never have tried to program if they hadn’t used WordPress. With Plugins, Themes, and Widgets, WordPress offers many ways to hack away at your blog software. People’s Programmers have been born from a program written by People’s Programmers. The stuff the plugin-makers write inspires others to learn a little PHP.

To put it in slightly technical terms, WordPress has created recursive People’s Programmers. If the infinite loop of helping others to inspire others to help others continues, we’ll all be better for it.

Help me keep the cycle going by encouraging the technical to Be People’s Programmers.

A few more thoughts on simplicity from Founders at Work.

Evan Williams, talking about Blogger, but he could just as well be talking about his latest project:

“What we built wasn’t that amazing. It was the idea of putting a couple of things together and being able to establish a lead by doing something really, really simple. How far you can get on a simple idea is amazing. I have a tendency to add more and more–the ideas always get too big to implement before they even get off the ground. Simplicity is powerful.”

Joshua Schachter on del.icio.us, a social bookmarking tool I like:

“Reduce. Do as little as possible to get what you have to get done. Do less of it; get it done. If you’ve got two things that you want to put together, take away until they go together. Don’t add another thing. Because you can understand it better, you can analyze it more cleanly.”

The book also features Blake Ross, who had similar thoughts about Firefox’s success.

If ever there was a time to not talk about the Internet, this is it. The tragedy at Virginia Tech on Monday has brought the nation together. More importantly, it brought a campus of 30,000 students together.

That’s why I think this might be the best time to talk about the Internet. And social design. And emulating real life.

These aren’t silly college students. The real life here is not frat parties and keg stands. Maybe that’s what Facebook is to us non-college students most of the time, but not now for Virginia Tech (FB account required).

Students are finding solidarity online. In this case, it’s Facebook, because the site has made it easy. They’re communicating, connecting, and mourning, just like they should after a tragedy.

This makes me proud of the Internet.