T3B

My latest article is up at InsideRIA. It's titled, "RIA's go Hollywood: An Introduction to Integrating Video Into Your Application." It provides an introductory look into how to best incorporate video into your applications. Special thanks to Josh Reed from Reed Multimedia for helping me out with shooting and editing the video.

You're probably familiar with the acronym K.I.S.S, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Let's face it, our lives our complicated enough. As designers and developers of software applications we have a unique opportunity to reduce some of those complexities by building applications that help make people's lives easier but also by making those apps as simple and easy to use as possible.

Albert Einstein put it nicely when he said "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler." This is an important adage to keep in mind when we're designing and developing our applications. We're all painfully familiar with the concept of scope creep.  Where the scope of a project gradually increases and before you know it, it has become unmanageable and impossible to complete on time or within budget. There is a similar concept known as "feature creep" where features keep getting added to an application because "oooh, that would be cool," or "that would be nice to have too." Often times we're our own worst enemies in this regard. We've just learned a new technique or about a new piece of technology that is available and we just have to use it! The problem is, if the feature isn't essential to the core function of the app it's just noise. Something to get in the way and confuse our users. Take a look at Google. When they started out they were just a search engine. When you went to google.com there was no question what you were supposed to do. One box, one or two buttons and you were off. Simple, efficient, and it got the job done.

80% of users are what as known as "perpetual intermediates." Basically this means that they quickly progress beyond the beginner stage of using your application to the intermediate stage where they have a good grasp of how to use the tool to get their job done. Very few will progress to the "advanced" user stage. So, rather than spending valuable time and resources on developing features that few, if any people will ever use focus that energy on a select few features that will help your users achieve their goals. Center your efforts around making those features as simple to use and as effective as possible. People don't rave about a program because it has hundreds of features, they rave about applications that help them achieve their goals in the simplest, most efficient way possible. Keep it simple.

My friend and former co-worker, Finch is writing a series of articles on UX for InsideRIA called UX Revolution. His latest piece is entitled RIAs of Christmas Future: UX Trends in 2009. He was kind enough to ask me for my opinion on the future of RIA's in 2009. Head on over and check it out. There's some very good insight from some of the top names in the industry.

Merry Christmas!