User Interface Design, reinventing the wheel 

It is easy to get lost in designing the user interface of your next great application. Let’s assume that your user interface will probably be a graphical user interface. Now, it is easy to confuse your user with something that is unlike anything else he or she has ever seen. Yet, Microsoft doesn't seem to be scared by reinventing the face of its flagship Office Suite. So where is the right path to a good user interface?

Maybe this helps:

a.  Experienced user or novice?

b.  Regular or occasional user?

 

Experienced users can handle even a command prompt, novices need all the help they can get. How about a wizard or two? When you use a program every day you'll problably get to be familiar with the program anyway. A novice will just keep repeating stuff that works. An experienced user might invent new ways to do things faster or better. Does your program cater for this?

• The mother of all graphical user interface designers is Common User Access (CUA). Get to know her, or you are doomed spending time on endless debates with questions like: "What to put in the caption of a popup dialog?" (Answer: the command that issued the dialog).
• But shouldn't there be a completely different set of design rules for web applications? Yes and no, most rules will still apply and your browser will probably follow the CUA guidelines anyway. The only thing to take into account is that the browser is probably less interactive than a pure graphical client (unless you use lots of script/Ajax).
• Won’t any new Windows version or WPF and Vista define a new set of user interface components and rules? Yes it does, but mostly it is CUA again. Just make sure that you also read the added rules.
• A graphical user interface should also be interactive. Any click must have a response within 2 seconds, or the user will click again. Waiting for more than 10 seconds? T..h..a..t…’s…t…..o…o…l….o….n…g. Either entertain your user with some kind of progress meter and/or let the user get on with his or her work.
• Your eye will be drawn to the lightest spot on the screen, or the spot with the most contrast. A black page with a large white box for writing some lines with comments? This box should then be the most important part of your dialog with the user.
• The Angry Fruit Salad in your bowl? Be careful with color. Remember that 10% of all male users have a problem seeing all colors correctly. Red for danger, yellow for a warning, green is ok? Yes, these are internationally accepted signals, but stop there. People are good at recognizing icons not at color decoding. 
• Don’t forget the accessibility guidelines if you expect the whole world to use your application.

Please comment if you have any other good tips, or find fault with one of the above.