
There seems to be a trend of late to take the minimialisation of interactive design to the extreme. Now I’m all or minimialisation and making user interfaces simipler.
You know making an interface streamlined to just the solid functionality of the interaction and no more.
I have been noticing a very frightening tread. In an effort to make things more usable, we are designing interfaces without the very functions used to support usability in the first place.
Tagged: bestpractice, designreview, interaction design, interface, ixd, minimal, minimialisation, professional development, ui, usability, ux
Bankwest * – a local Western Australian centric bank, that has recently redesigned it’s web site. Now the interesting thing with Bankwest is that they have been slowly over time improving their site with each redesign. Making the site more customer focused and less about the bank, more about people.
This most recent redesign seems to have taken that last final leap towards a customer centric service, leaving the stuffy old school bank image behind.

What happens when the usability of a system is bad, can the overall (user) experience of the system save the day?
How important really is usability to the big picture.
During a recent project I had the opportunity to observe (in an ethnographic capacity) people using a system that had an unending list of shortcomings.
In fact I still haven’t really found anything the system did well. Yes it was a UX horror story.
The people using the system where amazing, they had taken this poorly designed and contrived system and turned it into a workable, functioning, and productive series of procedures and sometimes supplementary systems.