I just had my “pre-review.” That is the meeting with my manager that takes place before the actual review, which is in March and involves a discussion of actual money.
It went pretty well — it always does. I am pretty good at what I do. As I talked about some ideas I had, my boss mentioned that I should think about moving into a career in UI (user interface design) after I leave the company (which let’s face it, we all plan to do at some point, except for the lucky few that want to stay at their current job forever).
She has a good point; I think UI design is something I would enjoy, and it’s a growing field. It basically means making a website totally usable, and involves quite a bit of psychology. A vast number of websites large and small are still making stupid 1996 decisions on how to present content, and sending messages they probably don’t want to. Like, having a music player of any kind launch when you land on a page. A HUGE no-no. Or, having a link on your site that goes to an “under construction” message. What that says to the user is, “I do not have my shit together, and I don’t mind telling the whole world!” Hey, how about removing the link altogether until the page is ready? Jesus.
Stuff like that. Would people pay me to tell them their web site makes no sense?
UI design consultant. Sounds hot!
That would be a fabulous job…and it is sooooo needed it isn’t even funny anymore. I bitch about poorly designed websites all the time. Dow’s intranet is horrendous, especially the keyword search feature. A lot of sites need better organization. After being online and surfing so often…you just *know* how sites should work, how they should look…and yet you get those that so glaringly fail it makes you cringe. Ugh.
The only way to get work doing this kind of consulting would have to include showing the company that making these changes will save you $XX or make you $XX. And I would have to produce concrete results, numbers, etc. But I know I could do that. I think making a website more usable does in fact save money, or make money.
Unfortunately it would be hard to convince a company that changing its interanet site would make any money :\
I definitely think you can convince them it would make more $ and save more $. In regards to an intranet…I think you could spin it – employees would find what they need faster, resulting in a better $ paid/work produced ratio, you could eliminate the high cost of calling on the help desk if employees could find the information they needed faster through the intranet, etc. They’ve implemented some changes with the help desk website, but it isn’t nearly enough.
Sounds like an awesome career to me =)
Sorry, this is long.
>Like, having a music player of any kind launch when you land on a page. A HUGE no-no.
Ahhhh, and yet! From a psychological point of view, I can think of an exception. I find it very frustrating when I go to a composer’s website and have to hunt around for music samples. Or alternatively, when I find the samples, find that they are in a format that is not compatible with the player installed on my computer. One of the best-designed professional websites I’ve ever seen (I even told the guy to congratulate his designer for me) immediately played one of his songs as soon as you landed on the page, and it was a different song each time you went there, and if you hit “refresh,” it would change. You immediately knew if you liked the guy’s work or not, which was the whole point of having a website in the first place, from his point of view.
I would argue that the same holds true on websites for musical plays for instance (unless of course it’s “The Woman In White,” but that’s only because the songs suck, not for any reasons of technology.)
And although you’re right about “under construction,” of course, there are some websites that are so unique that it’s worth it just having them available at all (even if they are incomplete). I would cite this as an example: http://www.alfonsosbreakawayglass.com/index.php
You can still shop on it, even though it’s not quite up and running yet, and since there aren’t a whole lot of other places out there that do this kind of thing (believe me, I looked) I don’t mind all that much that it’s kind of half-assed.
Re: Sorry, this is long.
I think for a music site, having music play is not unacceptable. But I mainly am referring to shopping sites that think it will somehow “enhance” the “experience”. The fact is that most people shop online/surf the web between 9am and 5pm: at work. Music suddenly blaring out of your computer without warning in a work environment is generally not kosher. It should always, always be opt-in, not opt-out.
As to the glass site, I disagree, the home page should never, ever say “this site is under construction” when there are in fact usable areas of the site. The home page for that site should absolutely be the shopping page, it’s ridiculous that that is not the first place you land. And the “custom” page is just awful, it looks like it never should have been pushed live and was meant for internal eyes only. That link should be totally pulled from the navigation. On the “credits” page, I just see unlinked thumbnails of movie posters, most of which are so small I can’t even tell what the movie was.
It would take very little work for that website to be fixed and to be more usable, and I guarantee you that they would see a difference in their traffic and in their conversion. I can’t believe they don’t even have a paragraph or two talking about their product and what it is, who they are. This is the type of thing I would be able to step in a fix, after convincing this company to fire ruleking.com, who is ultimately responsible.
I know you said you don’t mind that it’s half-assed, but believe me, a MINIMAL amount of work would fix some huge problems with that site.
What astounds me is that people are still using flash intros. Nothing says, “Hey, look at me, I don’t know poop about anything”, like a flash intro does. I would even go so far as to say using flash at all is a calling card for stupidity. I can understand using it for pop up adds, cause let’s face it, nobody is gonna pay attention unless you do something glitzy, but when you use it to design your whole interface and page, you deserve a spike in the eye.
Abuse of Flash is another pet peeve. I have seen Flash used correctly, even at my own job — usually to create some interesting movement in a page that still functions simply and still drives the user to a regular CSS/HTML shopping area.
I know what you mean about “intros”, especially at the top level of a website, like when you first land on the URL. Awful, waste of time, skip.
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woah, be careful who you are laying blame on there sweet checks. Part of working for small companies and their web sites (as apposed to working for a very large company that has plenty of resources) is that they make demands without actually providing any content or direction. Part of your job as a consultant is to help them find a direction, help them come up with content, but ultimately its their business and a lot of the time they just don’t deliver, and you are left hanging with a half complete web site. It looks like on that breakaway glass site that the web company did all they could without much client direction. They might have given them a list of movies, a stack of trailers or movie posters and said “make me a web site”. You would be surprised what people expect. The blame here is not on the consulting company, but on the business. They probably decided to put up something, ANYTHING, just so they can have a web site.
Just be aware if you do decide to become a freelance consultant, even for a large company, the whole point they are hiring you is that they haven’t got their act together most of the time. Comes with the territory.
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This is a little off topic, but generally the same thing. As a graphic designer I am often employed by people who don’t have a clue as to what it is I do. That is why a written contract stating what my responsibility vs client responsibility is, is so important. Contracts are the single most important thing you can do to protect yourself and enhance your business relationships. Any business owner who gets offended with having to sign a contract for your services, is not a business you want to work with. Business, most especially with friends, needs to be spelled all the way out to the final period. It must be clearly stated, depending on what you have been hired for, step by step what you will do for the client and after the contracts are signed avoid deviating from this. Assumption is the number one killer of friendly business in my experience. Don’t assume just because you think it is better that the client will. Don’t ever assume in business and you will go far.
Re: Sorry, this is long.
You’re right, it’s probably not the web developer’s fault. Who knows, maybe they said “we can’t launch this site looking like this” and the company said, “no, it’s fine, it will do,” and the web person just threw upp their hands and said “fine, whatever.” I can definitely see that happening! Then a few months later they are sitting there wondering why they have so many hits on their homepage, but then not much traffic to the other pages…
web sites that need help with user interface
Check this one out. (www.seahawks.com) for a professional organization, you would think that the “pro-shop” would work better; of course Sunday night you couldn’t even get into the pro shop. Then when I finally did, either I don’t know what to ask for (12th man t-shirt) or they don’t have them? But even at that you couldn’t look at the ‘back’. Little things like that bug this “user” Mom