Comments on: Breaking Conventions for Better Usability

By: Kris Meister

Kris Meister — Fri, 24 Nov 2006 02:29:38 +0000

Sebastian & Mike- That is an interesting suggestion. I feel the label boldening in the upper photos is re-enforcing a 2 column grid pattern. Perhaps if one bolds the data portion that grid pattern become unbalanced.

By: Mike McDerment

Mike McDerment — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 08:02:19 +0000

Sebastian – we thought of/tried that and the page gets confusing that way…the labels give context and I find in skimming a page the bold on the labels gives you the context you need. So, while logically it should work as you outlined, it just does note seem to work as well as it “should”. Thanks for the comment.

By: Sebastian Munz

Sebastian Munz — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:51:34 +0000

Good post! But why don’t take this a little bit further: why would you even have to bolden the labels, and not the data instead?

By: Donna Vitan

Donna Vitan — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 23:52:29 +0000

Better usability = Good. Updated FreshBooks rolling out in less than 10 days = Priceless!

By: ryan

ryan — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 21:19:00 +0000

i can read the email address just fine

By: jonas

jonas — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 09:05:24 +0000

Think its a great post and highilight an interesting point, however the use of giving the email adress a blur doesn’t really work does it? Especially with the company name still being so obivous…

By: Dmitry

Dmitry — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 00:03:59 +0000

After I read a book by Edward Tufte a few years ago (on visual reprsentation of data) I never looked at labels in the same way again. Ever since in our web apps we typically make labels smaller and much less prominent than actual data. After all, people in interested in your data, not in labels!
For example, see screenshots on this webpage:
http://www.wildapricot.com/tour1.aspx
So take it further! Grey labels out. You are supposed to do that kind of things, you got it all mixed

By: Mike McDerment

Mike McDerment — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:05:49 +0000

Great point Kris.

If you look at that text now (in the screenshot), versus the black text links on this page, you’ll see we have done some of that already…but you make a great point. Thanks for chipping in.

By: Kris Meister

Kris Meister — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:00:13 +0000

Another method to lesson the dominance of that bolded text would have been to lighten value of that black(maybe it’s grey).

By: Usability Thoughts if you are Interesed

Usability Thoughts if you are Interesed — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:00:11 +0000

[...] Breaking Conventions For Better Usability “We are doing something slightly different in the new release. We are dropping the text size of the bolded words (they are still useful for contextual reference within the page) and leaving the plain text (i.e. the useful content) larger. It looks like this (see the Green box)…” [...]