There’s plenty of best practices out there when it comes to design. Furthermore, there’s plenty of advice and warnings. Everyone’s got their view, and everyone’s got an opinion. Research is done, and then the conclusions are drawn and applications are generalized and universalized and disseminated to the waiting design community.

This, however, is not to say there isn’t some good stuff out there. Good stuff, when found, should be treasured and an evaluation made as to whether or not its counsel has been observed in our product.  When the counsel sheds prescriptive light on what we ought to do, then it’s our team’s job to start moving the UI in that direction when the opportunities present themselves.

Ultimately, however, each application and website is different. They have different purposes, and their applications accomplish different measurable goals and serve different audiences. The ultimate test, no matter the number of studies and research and best practices out there, is simple: usability tests with real clients and users on our application. It’s not even about what our clients or users say… it’s what they do. That’s why observation is so important: what do they actually do?  What are they clicking on?  Where are they making mistakes and clicking on the back button?

We’re working on a project these days with a different front-end implementation than other parts of our product. It’s been exciting to work on, and both developers and our Usability Team are jazzed about it, not just about the project itself, but what it can lead to in other parts of our product. That future focus is cool, and combined with some of the best practices and research out there, as well as validation by usability tests, things are looking and feeling pretty good this Friday.