Treat cute, clever, and cool as spices

Treat cute, clever, and cool as spices David Mar 05

17 comments Latest by feiern

Cute, clever, and cool are all important ingredients in a delicious application experience. But often their role is over- or understated. Too much and it’s hard to stomach, too little and it’s all bland.

So how do you get it right? One way to think about it is to treat these three C’s as spices. Spices are there to heighten the flavor of the main dish, not dominate and conquer its entire taste.

You can’t litter your page with darling kittens unless you’re Cute Overload, but you can add a few puns or quirky comparisons to put a smile on someone reading your help section.

You shouldn’t try to discern if someone is writing a letter in your word processor, but you can add a Google Maps link to something you know is an address.

You’d be foolish to make every link a fancy Ajax transition, but you can hide/reveal a very commonly used form with a nice fade.

It’s not about either or. You can be cute, clever, and cool in moderation and end up with character instead of clown.

Credit to Jeff Bezos for planting this comparison in my head.

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17 comments so far

Bill 05 Mar 07

Sheesh, I wish Bezos would plant that comparison in his Amazon employees’ heads.

John A. Davis 05 Mar 07

You can have way too many suprises when over-using AJAX . Users don’t like suprises. It’s like someon answering your question before you ask it.

wow! I have the second comment for this thread! Everyone must be sleeping off the weekend. Usually I’m about 250 place.

Dhrumil 05 Mar 07

Comparisons like this area great.

Everyone reading this blog knows this, but having this analogy is useful because it gives verbiage to a series of ideas that people have a hard time speaking/writing about.

“Dude, this site is almost there. But…you know… it just needs like 2 more pinches of cute and a small dose of cool.”

Thanks.

feiern 05 Mar 07

i think the major problem with ajax techniques is, that they are mostly used to impress, not to support.

things like modalbox are great, especially for macalicous people, but google’s way in gmail and docs’n’spreadsheets, to simply display the necessary screen as modal without transition, is much more gtd-style…

Andy Kant 05 Mar 07

Great post. I love the little clever phrases in modern web apps as long as they are done in moderation. They go a long way in making the web app more of a personal experience rather than the robotic experience we’re used to.

Samography 05 Mar 07

This is a good point. These rhetorical devices can also backfire when the service doesn’t match the kittens. Case in point: Dreamhost.

Ry Dahl 05 Mar 07

This reminds me of the Tao Te Ching

Too much color blinds the eye Too much tone deafens the ear Too much taste dulls the palate Too much play maddens the mind Too much desire tears the heart.

Alex Griffioen 05 Mar 07

Nice analogy.

But I honestly don’t think fading “a very commonly used form” is a smart thing to do. Once the wow-effect wears off quickly, and having to wait for a transition to finish on a frequently used element is downright annoying ;)

DHH 06 Mar 07

Alex, fades come in many forms. I’d totally agree that waiting, say, 1 second for a transition to finish on common operations would be very annoying. But there’s plenty of interesting visual effects that can be done in the 0.2-0.5 second space that soothes the eye and the mind.

Phil 06 Mar 07

I don’t even know what a quail looks like.

Ryan 06 Mar 07

I recently switched from PC to Mac (thanks to parallels) and I find OSX integrates cute, clever and cool pretty well. I think you can integrate movement and fun language without getting in the way of your app.

just some guy 06 Mar 07

example: dogster/catster calls the podcast it produces a “pawcast” and there are goofy-named pet links to carry out the actions that make up the application. if you don’t like animals it’ll seem ridiculous, if you love animals it’ll put a stupid grin on your face.

Chad 06 Mar 07

So does this imply that Bezos thought Highrise was missing one (or more) of the C ingredients?

Kyle 06 Mar 07

Funny—One of my colleagues used pretty much the same exact description the other day when discussing appropriate humor on the intarweb, and how difficult is can be to pull off successfully. I believe the example he used was the it was the “blueberries in your granola cereal”.

Khoi Vinh 06 Mar 07

I’m more a fan of Scary, Baby, Ginger and Posh, myself, but to each his own.

Adam McIntyre 06 Mar 07

I find myself explaining this concept over and over to colleagues. Not everything “needs” to zoom around the screen or magically appear.

Because something can be done does not mean that it should be done.

feiern 06 Mar 07

@adam Because something can be done does not mean that it should be done.

That’s exactly the point. Too many people are executing too much bullshit, just because it is possible.

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