EBlog

Simplicity and User-Centered Design

September 20, 2007 | Posted by: Nicholas

My last two posts focused on simplicity and user-centered design. Now, how do these come together in today’s fancy Web 2.0 world? Well, they come together at Threadless, the t-shirt company that was Web 2.0 (read “user-generated content”) before Web 2.0 was cool.

Take a look at one of their product pages. Now, these are absolutely exploding with simplicity, if that’s possible, but I’ll only focus on one especially tidy bit.

Most online stores give you the option to “view larger” or somehow get a closer look at what you’re buying. Most also do this in a pop-up window. Worse, they often load some bloated Java-based zoom-around thingy. What does Threadless do? Click a product image (the one to the left of the photo) and find out… I’ll wait.

Did you see that? All it did was link you down the page? Now, Threadless has all kinds of excuses to use a shmancy lightbox-type effect to show you this image: Hip, javascript-enabled audience. Serious Web 2.0 street-cred to maintain. All the cool kids are doing it. Etc. But stop and think about what doing it the old-fashioned way (”In-page anchor links are sooo 2001!”) does for them… and you!

• Keeps you right on the page. You know, the page where you can buy stuff?
• Gives you instant gratification. No waiting for windows to pop-up or additional graphics to load.
• Does away with concerns about pop-up blockers or any other technology-based woes.
• Lets you link to the larger image to show your friends the cool t-shirt you just bought.

Simple. User-centered. I heart threadless.