December 26, 2008

Web Design

User interface: Is interactivity always the best approach?

I want to use this site as a catalyst for a discussion. I like the design--it's an interesting approach to teaching people how to react when an earthquake hits.

But it also raises two questions about user interface. First, does inviting the reader to pick and choose what they want to read and to potentially bypass a critical aspect of the presentation the best way to cover the information?

And second, is a multiple choice question that plants right answers among wrong answers the best way to help readers learn and retain answers in a potentially crisis situation?

UI experts (and others), I'd love to hear your thoughts.

earthquake quiz

The earthquake quiz...

NEW in the Ideabook Design Store: Tintbook CMYK Process Color Selector...

Comments

I found the site to be inviting and the interactivity aspect definitely added some interest to a potentially boring (to some, not necessarily me) topic.

Does inviting the reader to pick and choose what they want to read the best way to cover the information? My gut reaction would be yes, however, I believe the site could be more engaging into getting a user to click on all of the spots. I completed the multiple choice question and then clicked one spot and was ready to move on. Perhaps the scene should react more, at least causing more interest when someone clicks on one of the hot spots.

I think that the multiple choice questions were very helpful, especially since my instinctive reaction to some questions did turn out to be the incorrect choice. Will I retain that knowledge? Most likely I will since there are other aspects to help better visualize the question and potential answer choices.

Ultimately, the big missing issue that would have really made the site fulfill it's purpose for me would be to have sound. Did I miss something? There was no sound in the whole thing. The text was interesting and the animation caused some interest, but without sound, my attention was really not pulled into the site, causing me to only click a few spots and move on.

I hope this helps! :D

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Chris.

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