K is for Kindness

Whereas joy (yesterday's post) was an outcome, an effect rather than a cause, kindness is most emphatically a state of mind to be actively cultivated.

Be kind to your users

What does that mean?

More specifically, what does that mean in concrete terms in software design?

Let's start by eliminating a few suspects from our inquiries. For a start, I am assuming that the software does what it is supposed to do, i.e. it functions correctly. Also, I'm assuming that it performs well, and is secure and robust. That is not kindness, that is just doing your job. Take it as given.

But if it does all those things, what's left?

Consistency: When you are driving somewhere you've never been before, and you approach an intersection, do you panic, wondering how traffic is going to behave? No, you should know what to expect from the layout and the traffic signs. Road signs are consistent and traffic follows standard rules. All you have to worry about is which turn to take. The same should be true when a user comes to a screen or starts typing data. Completing a transaction should not mean clicking "OK" on one screen, hitting a "Save" icon on another, and a drop-down menu on a third. Clicking an "Exit" option should not save your work on three screens, but discard unsaved changed on the fourth. Be kind. Be consistent.

Comprehensibility: I wouldn't expect to drive around Victoria and find road signs written in Russian, or speed limits posted as fractions of the speed of light. Nor should your users be presented with instructions requiring a degree in astrophysics to understand. This is a business application you're writing. The only language that has any right to be shown is the business language that the user talks.

Clarity: Cluttered screens, scrolling windows within scrolling windows, nested layers of menu bars and ribbons ... space shuttle pilots might be able to cope. Not all of us are space shuttle pilots.

Tolerance: Kindness to your users means being tolerant of mistakes. A person should be able to hit a wrong key or click the wrong button, and be able to recover from the error. Many applications have an "Undo" feature, a good example of tolerance. But if you've finished a transaction and there's nothing to "undo", there should still be easy ways to correct mistakes, and to cancel or reverse entries.

Escape routes: Would you get away with designing a building without any means to escape a fire? Every step of the way through your application, there should be a way out. And, yes, it should be consistent.

Enterprise applications I've worked on in the past had a control or function key that unfailingly returned you to a menu.

The same key.

On every. Single. Damned. Screen.