So I came across an interesting little script that adds ‘animated page scrolling’ to anchor links within a page. What I found more intriguing than the script itself was the author’s justification:

“It might seem like nothing but eye candy, but it can be a great way to lead a user around a page while still giving them some context as to where they are.”

This statement hits the nail on the head: Whether it’s a yellow fade technique, slide out menus, or animated page scrolling—these nifty little animation tricks do much more than entertain, they communicate. Where am I? Did something just happen? Where did that go? Where did that come from? These animations are subtle but powerful interaction cues.

Not just animations
It is precisely details like this that differentiate really great designs from, well everything else.

In 2003, I gave a presentation on how to get web designs from good to great, emphasizing that it probably takes the same time to get from ‘zero to 95%’ that it takes to get from ‘95% to 100%’.

While my focus at that time was more on visual web design than it was on interaction design (focusing on things like typography and texture), the point remains the same: design details take time and careful attention.

What has changed since then is this: details are no longer a luxury. If you’re building an online application, it is the details and micro-innovations that are going to make one product preferable to another. Whether it’s shaving millimeters off of a phone design (in the product design world) or obsessing on the best language to use in an application—the dollars are in the details. Sure, where there’s a new market, or new innovations, there is plenty of room to screw up on these details. That’s expected. But as a market matures and the big problems get solved, the expectations for ‘getting it right’ are naturally raised. When pretty good is standard, it’s time to start obsessing over the details.

So, what are you doing, using, recommending, or trying out now that you weren’t one year ago?

Since my post on Monday, I’ve come across two different (technology) examples that illustrate my point about how we could alter the ways we interact with information on a (professional services) Web site.

A Visual Display of Information
First, checkout Timeline (part of an open-source project at MIT )

This is an amazing and easy-to-use widget for visualizing time-based events. Think of it as Google Maps for time-based information. We know most people are visual learners. So why present time-based events – like a company history – in straightforward text?

Browser-Based Instant Messaging
Second, while live chat on a web site is nothing new, the attention that MeeboMe and consequently Gabbly have garnered in the past week started me thinking: Now that it’s free and easy to drop in instant messaging on your site, how else could this be applied?

So… what about the ability to instant message an employee directly from an employee directory page? Sounds a bit scary, I know. But for the right-sized company (read: under the radar), and respecting each employee’s time or interest in being visible to joe public, this type of communication could be an effective means for prospective hires or interested sales leads to initiate a more honest conversation. Context would obviously be important, given the easy abuse – intentional or not—of such a feature. For example, I seriously doubt that Girish would want to be interrupted by someone asking how to achieve an “aqua style button effect” in photoshop.

I don’t normally use this blog to recommend a particular technology or extension, but this is too good to not share with others (and apparently it is isn’t as common as I might’ve thought).

Drag and Drop Upload
(You can get it here)

As the name implies, you can drag and drop your files to the upload field. It’s my favorite (read: it helps me streamline a common, cumbersome task) Firefox extension.

I just came across Chatsum. It’s a new service that allows you to chat with other (Chatsum) users who are currently viewing the same web page as you.

Potential usability applications?
This does require Firefox (and the Chatsum download), which (1) skews the ‘natural’ participant pool and (2) could make remote testing difficult for some ‘selected’ participants. But for our internal site audits (where the presumed experts gather round a site to shred it apart) this is a great tool. We could start using this to capture site feedback, however informal, more quickly and without the need to transcribe later. Not to mention other Chatsum users (viewing the same page) would be able to join in ‘our’ conversation. And the instant messaging format gives a voice to those participants who tend to be less vocal in group settings, while still allowing for the benefits of group discussions.

While this could be used ‘closed circuit’ for sites under development, for a site that already gets a lot of traffic, this is a great way to begin a dialogue with actual customers/visitors. Or at least those using Chatsum.