The Meat and Potatoes
Familiarity vs. Innovation
Often times an interface designer will come upon a situation where he/she has discovered a superior, yet unconventional solution to a given design problem. The solution may be one that requires less time, less clicks or simply makes more logical sense, but at the same time may have a learning curve associated with it. Should the designer stick to convention and familiarity regardless of the fact that the new solution may be a more streamlined approach, or take a risk and implement the superior solution.
As designers, it is our duty to push the medium forward when possible, but risking alienation of users for the sake of innovation is a slippery slope. So what’s a designer to do? Like everything else in design, there is no clear cut answer…every situation is unique. It’s up to the designer to take all the variables into account and make a decision that suits the context at hand. Asking yourself a few simple questions can help you determine when the time is right to push the envelope…
Is your audience a demographic that would be open to a change with a learning curve associated to it?
A younger, and/or more technically savvy audience is going to be much more resilient to something a bit unfamiliar, than an older audience with a rudimentary level of web expertise. Similarly, the more mainstream and broad the audience, the less accommodating they’ll be to unfamiliarity.
Are the majority of users singular or repeat visitors?
A website with repeat visitors (web application/service) is going to be much more conducive to something unfamiliar, than a website that is “one-off” by nature (company marketing website). For example, if your service is visited 100 times by a user, and 1 of those visits is devoted to overcoming the learning curve associated to the unfamiliar feature, then 99% of their experience will have benefitted from the more streamlined approach. Conversely, if your users visit once and never return, the learning curve will inhibit 100% of their experience.
Is the specific task that the user is performing one that will be repeated over and over again?
If the new approach is one that will reduce the time needed to perform the task, and the task is one that will be repeated numerous times (i.e. entering tasks into a to-do list), then the time saved will greatly outweigh the time lost to overcoming the learning curve.
Again, every situation is unique and sometimes a gut feeling is your best bet. Interface design is never and exact science and the best way to get it right is to make a decision, launch it, gather feedback and iterate.