Activity 2: Rich User Experiences

Last week, I blogged about one O’Reilly’s web 2.0 patterns, data is the next Intel Inside. This week, I’ll look at another one, rich user experience. This involves delivering a PC style and level of interactivity via web browser applications.

One web application which is notable for its rich user experience is Defringe, an online art gallery. Pictures and a short description are tiled across the page and users are able to click to open an article, containing more information on and pictures of the piece.

Best Practices

Defringe exhibits many of the recommended best practices for providing a great experience for its users. Firstly, it puts usability and simplicity first. Users are instantly able to work out how to operate the website, but just as importantly, the designers found a way to make this interactivity fun. Small details, such as the way the navigation icons change or page numbers scroll as a mouse rolls over them, give the application a sense of personality, and this in turn gives the user a more enjoyable experience.

The website also puts a focus on search over structure. Content is easily sourced through typing key words into a search bar found in the navigation on each page. Although structure is provided by allowing users to sort by category or publishing date, this definitely isn’t the application’s focus as individual articles don’t disclose this information, and therefore would make it harder for a user to look for an article they had previously read based on this.

Despite having a seamless transition between various interfaces, Defringe also preserves its content’s addressability by changing the URL for each page. This is clearly a very important ability as it allows users to share their content, and hence increase their site traffic and general brand awareness.

However, one best practice which Defringe is seriously lacking in is deep, adaptive personalisation. The application doesn’t allow for users to create accounts (although due to the application’s purpose there really is no need for this functionality), nor does it make article recommendations based on past browsing activity. This could be an ability which site developers could implement later.

Comparison

In contrast, another platform based on a similar idea but with a very different execution is Instagram. This is a web and mobile application which allows users to upload pictures with a description and tags, which help others to find the post. However, this platform operates very differently to Defringe. Firstly, and most importantly, it relies on user uploads instead of Defringe’s model of having only moderators post (albeit with giving users the ability to make a post suggestion). Secondly, its web application has no focus on search. It is impossible for users to search for content using the web application unless they click on the tag they want within a post they are looking at, although third parties have filled this gap. This complete lack of functionality makes it the antithesis of Defringe, which has a huge focus on searchability. Also unlike Defringe, Instagram is actually a very good example of having deep, adaptive personalisation. Based on a user’s activity, the web application is able to recommend other users for someone to follow.

Do you find Defringe's user experience as enjoyable as I do? Let me know in the comments.