Utah PHP Users Group

web assumptions

Wednesday, 9 January 2008 @ 18:59

I was listening to a podcast by Phil McKinney and he frequently counsels listeners to question what you assume about services or products to provide insight for innovation opportunities. So, I compiled a list of what I (and some friends) assume about the web. There are some great sites which break these assumptions in a great way; and, there are some sites that unfortunately suffer from breaking these assumptions.

What else do we assume about the web?

Maybe some of the assumptions will spark some ideas for your projects.

I look forward to seeing your responses.

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responses

  1. wade2008/1/9 @ 21:04

    Developers programming websites to automatically move the focus to the next form field when the requirements have been met on the first (as in the phone number example you gave in your list) is very annoying. They believe that they are improving usability when in fact they are hurting it. Since it is not the expected behavior, the user strikes the tab key and is then moved on to the third field. Also, if the user makes a mistake and tries to back up (shift+tab), they cannot.
  2. wade2008/1/10 @ 8:52

    While this isn’t an assumption, reading your list reminded me of a big pet peeve of mine regarding websites: advertising that asks customers to come “log onto” a site when they really mean “visit” or “load.”
  3. seth taylor2008/1/10 @ 10:17

    Thanks Wade. What you mentioned in your second comment reminds me a bit of the 14th assumption. It seems that businesses/marketers want people to think their having an out of chair experience with “visit,” “go to,” or “log into/onto” when - what if they said something like “allow us to download visible and less visible files from our server to your hard drive” — obviously people wouldn’t be as comfortable with it.

    Do we make assumptions about what people are comfortable in hearing regarding calls to actions?
  4. mjbauer2008/1/13 @ 21:32

    I think designers frequently assume (I know I have) that people don’t read, or that large blocks of text intimidate users out of reading.

    I’ve seen some pretty convincing evidence to the contrary.
  5. Hollowmyth2008/1/15 @ 21:17

    I think it all depends on the contents of the site and the audience. You wouldn’t try to make 14-year-olds read Moby Dick online any more than you’d try to make your news site boil down each story into txt msg frmt.
  6. seth taylor2008/1/16 @ 12:17

    Excellent additions. May I have your permission to post these assumptions on my blog?