How do you design for density?
Lately we’ve seen a lot of movement towards usability and clean design on the web. Indeed it’s a relief, and quite needed. I feel like we’re still missing something.
A couple examples:
In the case of tabular data Veerle Pieters has a couple of excellent tutorials on her methods.
Smashing Magazine just posted a nice showcase of gorgeous web forms. The focus here was contact forms, and I think the examples they picked were mostly terrific executions. Contact forms are easy though. You just have a handful of fields to deal with, so you have a lot of room to work with. You can use a lot of whitespace to add beauty and readability in this case, but what do you do when you have a more complicated form?
While I’ve built dozens of websites and web applications, I still find myself struggling when the data that needs to be presented or input is more than a few fields. My general attack on an information dense page is to try and distill it down to what is most important. That doesn’t always work. Sometimes the client wants more information than seems possible viewable at the same time. Sometimes that’s what the end user wants.
So where does that leave me? Generally unsatisfied. I’ll present as much information as makes sense in tables that are well styled. I’ll rethink the flow of an application to minimize the input you need in each step. That itself is a dangerous tightrope to walk, because if you disassemble something too far, you’re just creating another kind of complexity. I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this. I think it may bother me more than most.
Here are some examples of interfaces that really bother me. I find them difficult to use, but I don’t know the solution for cramming all the information they cover in either.
The Bad
my.ebay.com
There’s a lot of information you can access here. The main area isn’t terrible, but generally presents things I will never care about knowing. There is a good deal more info buried in the left hand menu with descriptions that don’t actually tell me what I am looking for.
myspace.com
Ok, this one everyone knows. I won’t even bother going into detail or posting a screen. Myspace has a truly horrible archaic interface, even the new beta revisions. I don’t even have an account any longer because it’s such a pain.
The Good
Facebook.com
While it’s getting cluttered, and the advent of facebook apps has made the site a lot less desirable, it’s still pretty easy to use and read. It’s not gorgeous, but it’s not ugly.
Blinksale.com
This is an invoicing service. Very straightforward functionality, very easy to use, and very easy on the eyes. I’ve been using them well over a year now, and I’m still very pleased.
So I’m calling for more examples from readers of both the good and the bad of information dense web design. Better yet, do you have any ideas on methods of dealing with it in your own designs? If I get enough responses I’ll do a follow up post and I’d be happy to showcase your work.
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