Speed Helps Usability | January 17th, 2006
Just reading through a great blog about usabiilty and UI design by Jensen Harris. One point he makes well is about the importance of fast user interfaces to enhance usability. This should be obvious but fast interfaces are easier to use, allow quicker learning and allow users to be more productive. This is the reason why people should look at AJAX for web interfaces vs standard html interfaces, however it seems this gets lost in the shuffle with some of the frameworks and sites coming out. We put a lot of work, thought and time into making our web UI controls faster, maybe more than we should…but we truly believe that faster user interfaces help users and provide a better user experience. It’s not just scratching our own itch to build fast software…well not entirely:-) Slow software sucks.
Check out Jensen’s blog it’s full of great information about usability in general and specifically about some of neat UI stuff in Office 12 including the new ribbon menus.