By Alexandra Reid
Martin Gomez spoke yesterday at Social Media Breakfast Ottawa on the principles behind the design and development process and how they could be applied to web design to boost online presence.
Gomez is an accomplished professor at Algonquin College, where he teaches Design for Interactive Media and Business Graphic Design. One glimpse at his reviews on the oft-ominous RateMyProfessor.com lets you know that Gomez is “beyond cool” and one of the “best professors in the IMD program,” weighing in at 5/5 for overall quality, helpfulness and clarity. One student went so far as to speculate “half the guys [in his class] had developed a man-crush by the end of the semester.”
Gomez’s aforementioned cool checks out, as he began his career advising the online image of Linkin Park. Today, Gomez is also Creative Director for Sparkart, which works with such high-profile clients as Janet Jackson, Bon Jovi and Carrie Underwood.
In his presentation, Gomez discussed user interface and how conventional designs are often better than innovative ones. The key, according to Gomez, is to keep things simple and intuitive. “Often times, the best way to do things is the way it has always been done,” said Gomez. “You can’t think outside the box unless there is a box in the first place.”
If you are going to make something better, you must understand that the perceived learning curve is small. To successfully innovate, the experience must be so intuitive that we forget the convention.
Applying these ideas to web design, Gomez said that clients often have lofty ill-informed goals for their sites. His solution is what he calls “satisficing,” or, satisfaction from a solution that is just adequate enough that it suffices. When designing a website, Gomez said you must keep in mind that your users demand only three things:
- Don’t make me think
- Don’t waste my time
- Show me what to do
If you don’t appease their demands, you will suffer the worst possible outcome – people leaving your site.
In his conclusion, Gomez left us with some key takeaways:
- Consider the needs and habits of the user at every step of development.
- Be clear, concise and simple. Be obvious.
- Don’t reinvent the wheel unless you have something better than a wheel.
According to Gomez, designing for humans is about letting a user, with as little interruption as possible, perform the tasks you require of them in as human a way as possible.
In this short video interview, Gomez expands on some of these topics:
Social Media Breakfast Ottawa: Designing for Humans from SMBOttawa on Vimeo.
Social Media Breakfast attendees, what key points did you take away from the presentation?
