- Violates User Expectations
- Causes Motion Sickness
- Reduces Accessibility for Disabled Users
- Inconsistent Performance Across Devices
- Impairs Usability for Power Users
- Increases Page Load Times
- Breaks Native Browser Features
- Makes Scroll Position Unclear
- Adds Maintenance Overhead
- Disrespects the User’s Control
Flat, minimalist, clean, material - whatever you want to call it - is an annoying antipattern. Computers are here to make life easier for humans. Removing affordances is just a nasty thing to do to your users.
Progressive disclosure interface patterns categorised and evaluated:
I really like the hypertext history invoked in this article.
The piece finishes with a great note on the MacNamara fallacy:
Everyone thinks metrics let us measure results. But, actually, they don’t. They measure only what they are measuring. Engagement, for example, is not something that can be measured, so we use an analogue for it. Time on page. Or clicks.
We often end up measuring what is quick, cheap, and easy to measure. Therefore, few organizations regularly conduct usability testing or customer-satisfaction surveys, but lots use analytics.
Even today, organizations often use clicks as a measure of engagement. So, all too often, they design user interfaces to generate clicks, so the system can measure them.
Use a toggle switch if you are:
- Applying a system state, not a contextual one
- Presenting binary options, not opposing ones
- Activating a state, not performing an action
- Obey the Law of Locality
- ABD: Anything But Dropdowns
- Pass the Squint Test
- Teach by example
