Multiple Inbox Disorder. Remember when I said Ambiguity and Noise kill the user experience? Facebook hits us with both barrels by showing three different inboxes. I have enough stuff to check without having to figure out “Inbox”, “Event Invitations”, and “Notifications”. Note that on the actual Facebook page these inboxes are separated from each other by oceans of text, buttons, ads, and profile pics.
Where’s Waldo? This email from SXSW puts a wall of happy text where a big juicy “Send Feedback” button should be. Email designers, don’t be timid. Ask for the sale because you’re competing with calls to action in Gmail ads.
Did you do your chores? I seldom visit FriendFeed. Now I remember why. Steve Krug should write a sequel to Don’t Make me Think entitled Don’t Make it a Chore.
Modal Mayhem. Only use modal dialogs when you really need to grab users by the lapels to warn them of danger. Too often modals are like a used car salesman pressuring you to buy a car without a test drive. This one gets bonus points for being laughably designed. Why are the text field and submit button in different time zones? What’s with the weirdly placed RSS icon?
Seriously? The AT&T website where I pay my $90/month bill might take “a few minutes” to login. You’re ostensibly a technology company, but you can’t build a decent login?