Design/Userability Question?

[morosa]

Hello.

just designing a new portfolio for myself and was wondering what ya'lls thoughts were on creating buttons that only display the First Letter for each Section. For Example: on my Portfolio button, I just have the letter "P", then you rollover it and a tooltip will appear that display's the full word. Since I only have a total of four sections (Personal(projects), Professional(projects), Resume, Contact) I figured it wouldn't be that big of deal. However, I am wondering if this is a bad idea as far as userability goes?

Then again, isn't a designers portfolio supppose to lean a little bit towards the 'experimental' side of Human Computer Interactivity? As long as it's executed well...and in-turn still easy to navigate...who cares? right?

What are your thoughts?


Thanks in advance for the feedback.



- morosa

[aversion]

numerous usability studies and my own usability testing exsperiences have demonstrated that the most annoying thing to an average user is unmarked navigation. Associated with that, user interaction studies show that more than 80% of people decide what they can do on a web page before they move the mouse, in other words people don't explore the web page with their mouse.

By creating mystery meat nav you'll be breaking these 'rules' of user interaction. Whether that is warranted or not is up to you. I don't think the fact that you're creating a portfolio site matters, if you're looking to promote yourself to laypeople you have to deal with the consequences of breaking those expectations. I'm not saying you shouldn't break them I'm just saying you should take into account that your user will probably be confused and maybe annoyed by unmarked navigation, unless your design somehow encourages or rewards exploration.

The only place the designer is really free to break all these rules is on the 'personal site', where usability comes second to expression. A portfolio site is still trying to sell something, it's trying to push a message to a potentially wide audience for the most part. You might be aiming your portfolio site exclusively at art directors or other creatives who are more willing and knowledgeable enough to explore a site, but it's more liekly your audience will consist of people of all experience and abilities.

My recommendation would be don't. Even with all the web savvy I have as a designer it still irks me when I see unmarked navigation, there are rare occasions when it's right and the site fits the navigation style, but I don't think I've ever seen a portfolio site that lived up to that.

On almost every occasion I've seen mystery meat navigation on a site it smacks of a designer's self-indulgence and disregard for their audience and the message which their design is intended to convey. If I were you I would think seriously about what your design is intended for and ask yourself whether unmarked navigation is really what your design needs. It might be that the answer is yes, it all depends on your design.

[morosa]

aversion,

Many thanks and much appreciation for taking the time to respond to my question. You have provided some very helpful advice. The whole mystery meat nav, I agree, isn't the greatest approach and far from the appropriate way to design. The only designer I can honestly think of that is able to get away with it is that Bradley dude, over at www.gmunk.com

However, despite how great his work really is, I do recall how much I hated navigating his site. For instance, you'll click on a button, up pops a window, plays a video, and then upon return to the site, you have forgotten which button you originally clicked. That is, however, until you've navigated your way from left to right, remembering and even counting how far or how many buttons from the left you've visited already. Pretty ****ty and quite annoying to say the least. However, it is his personal site and like you said the navigation now comes second to the content. However, no matter how true this is, the mystery meat navigation does suck.

Now that you've pointed these things out to me, I believe I'll revamp my nav.

Again, thanks for your time, help and valuable advice.

Have a great day.

later.


morosa

[aversion]

No worries.

I was thinking about this and the one site that I think everyone enjoyed which had navigation marked only by a single letter was, if I'm remembering correctly, the old dennis interactive. They're gone now, victims of the economy, but they were most definitely a commercial studio site with an excellent reputation. I think what made their nav work was the wonderful little animations that went with each of the buttons, I remember a beaker filling up for the 'lab' for example.

the site was dennisinter.com if you want to find a cached copy, though google doesn't have one.

That kind of thing can be used effectively because people are rewarded for their exploration of the nav with these enjoyable animations and can associate the animation with the section, which helps them remember what's what.

It's something that's very difficult to get right though. And even when you do use fully annotated nav a lot of designers ignore the standard 3 states, over, active and visited. It's that last one that most people forget and it's a common comment from testers in usability sessions, because they're used to the purple link in html pages they've visited. However, I think that the visited state doesn't suit the often graphic nature of the flash button and the imagery itself helps users associate and differentiate sections.

anyway, I'm babbling, good luck with the site!

[morosa]

thanks again aversion. great stuff.

[mg33]

Nice posts aversion. I totally agree.

mg33