This post was inspired by “The 7 signs your UI was created by a programmer” post on Voyce.com.
- Your Web UI consists solely of CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) screens – no matter how complex the user interaction is, it can always be boiled down to CRUD. Right?
- Everything is in Times New Roman – who needs a nice-looking font anyway?
- Everything is using the latest JavaScript library with UI functionality – what do you mean not everyone is running the latest FireFox beta?
- It uses tables for layout. Everywhere. Because CSS sucks to debug (on top of that, “Screw the Semantic Web!”).
- The form fields validate, they just don’t have any errors next to them when they fail – because the user should know what they did wrong.
- And forms themselves go on and on and on …
I could only come up with 6, but I’m sure there are many more. Add your favorites in the comments below!
I’m also hoping to turn this into a somewhat regular series on Web Developers and tips and tricks for designing usable, non-ugly interfaces. If you have any tips, let me know in the comments and I’ll be sure to credit you.
