“Elegance in design is achieved when you have removed everything possible, not when you have added everything possible.”

I love this observation found in Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick. When I first read this, it immediately made me think about usability testing - the process of observing users unfamiliar with a site as they try to complete specific tasks on that site.

New observers are almost universally struck by the divergence between expected and actual behavior. For me, it is a humbling experience to watch users ignore seemingly “can’t miss” parts of the page, to fail to complete the easiest tasks given to them, and become irritated with the features that were supposed to impress or help them. Running counter to the tendency and desire of most of us (designers, developers, clients) to add whizzy new features or innovative design elements, the results of usability testing constantly reinforce the importance of simplifying, clarifying, and focusing every page on a site for a specific purpose. Usability testing reminds us that design elegance is achieved by removing as much as possible, and that simple, focused sites are preferred by the only people who really matter: our customers.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 12th, 2007 at 2:24 pm and is filed under Design, Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.