I am no UI expert, but I am a user
The other day I was watching a football game. Okay, it was the Patriots 59 to nothing blow-out in a snow storm. I noticed that the graphic that showed the score had 3 yellow dots over each team’s name. Later in the game I realized that these dots were not just part of the graphic. They conveyed the all important information as to how many time outs each team had left. Intuitively obvious to the casual observer.
In contrast, I found myself completely confused by the graphic superimposed on the field showing what down it was and how many yards were needed to get a first down. I found myself trying to make sense of the head or tail of the graphic. It isn't where the ball is. It isn't where they need to go. It appears to be totally random. Even though it is a really cool thing, instead of adding value it just added confusion.
Which reminds of the Notes application I was using recently. I was looking for some information and couldn't find and couldn't even understand why I wasn't finding in. Then I realized the first column of the view was categorized, the second column had information, and the third column was sorted. So when I read the view from left to right, scrolling down the unsorted second column, nothing made sense.
Who knew that you would have to explicitly state that a requirement for that application should be that the sort order of views made sense. If the third column really needed to be sorted, it should be the first column after the categorized column. Or sort the second column. It makes it much easier for simple people like me to find stuff.
Category Best Practice
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