What are some good usability guidelines an average developer should follow? [closed]

Answer 1

Just two things, really:

1. "A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would" - quoted from Joel Spolsky's User Interface Design For Programmers
2. Put your designs in front of a user. A real end-user is best, but for lightweight, rapid feedback, you can't beat hallway usability testing i.e. grab a co-worker.

If you remember Joel's advice and make sure you get feedback on whatever you do and act on it i.e. iterate, you'll not go too far wrong. And I would echo the recommendation for Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think - it's probably the best work-related book I've read, bar none, and is just as applicable to desktop software as websites.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Provide keyboard shortcuts for power users (even if it is as simple as "hit enter to search")

Don't put too much on screen at once.

If you pop up a messagebox, your users generally won't ever read it.

Answer 3

• Don't make things work in a different way than your users are expecting (i.e. breaking the "back" button when using Ajax in web forms
• Follow the K.I.S.S principal

Really, any rules someone posts will be a variation on the theme: Don't Make Your Users Think

"Don't Make Me Think" has already been posted, see also Design of Everyday Things and Designing with Web Standards which are also great for light usability reading.

Answer 4

What information does your user need, put that on the screen and nothing else. If you cannot define what the user needs - get another user.

Answer 5

The single most important piece of advice I'd give someone is to work on the UI first. Pen and paper and all. That way, you won't subconsciously couple buttons to functions, input fields to variables, etc.

The best UI might be a pain to code, and if your backend code is mostly written, it will sabotage your thinking.

Other than that, I'd point to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines. Of course, if your platform is not OS X, take the OS X sections with a lot of salt. What works in OS X might not work on Windows. You should embrace your platform's idioms.

OS X stuff aside, that document has some pretty good starting points on the fundamentals.

Answer 6

(1) Common actions should require as little effort as possible and should be obvious; on the other hand, actions that are rarely needed can be require a lot of steps and can be hidden behind menus and dialogs. To be able to do so, you should always describe what the user will want to do with the application by listing use cases.

(2) A UI should be selfdocumenting. The manual should be integrated in the application's dialogs and menu's, as users don't read separate manuals. For example, the keyboard shortcut should be shown in the menu item representing the action it is associated with.