interaction design redux - I told you so

Back in March, I was commenting on a visual design versus interaction design issue.

To recap: There's a website we're designing where you can tag products for comparison later. Whilst the 'add' control its above the fold of the screen in the product page, the list of what you collect and the access to the comparison screen are at the very bottom of content pages. Nothing indicates how to keep track or retrieve what you have tagged.

Well after extensive user testing, people did not find the controls to the application at the bottom of the page below the fold.

This post on the IXDA forum sums its up as if they had known about my project. And I quote... "Several screens had action buttons below the fold, but not above. Customers didn't scroll down and couldn't figure out how to continue to the next screen. " This was back in 2005 and unless we've made a huge leap in user behavior it still stands. Or, the screen design should invite you to scroll (provide a call to action etc etc)

I outlined the problem with it at the concept, schematics and final design points. This is why you need interaction design education in multidisciplinary teams. This one is so close to old school my heads spinning as to why you would break the convention on aesthetic grounds.

Now its coded and tests appallingly with users..

When I let the designer know, they suggested having controls that scrolls the page down to where the actual controls are. on a long content page this would be really disconcerting and raises a whole raft of other issues. (loss of user control has long been a usability no no, see Neilsens pillars er heuristics, particularly on user control).

All people in my testing wanted and expected the controls and notifications above the fold of the page, close to where the first control is.

Arg.. Sigh. Why didn't we do it?

The controls got in the way of the designers 'aesthetic vision' of the page.

Imagine putting an interior designer in charge of creating Three Mile Islands control panels. They would look great, but end up melting down. This is web site design, not 'Project runway'.