One of my primary roles as a developer is to look for ways to optimize software. It’s sort of my job, right? When we were developing the portfolios for SmibsNet profiles, I discovered that if code works too quickly, people can miss critical events. We had already developed the drag ‘n’ drop interface for resorting multiple portfolios, and were trying to figure out what kind of indicator would do the trick. It had to be something to make it clear to people that the resorting was being processed, and something that would prevent users from continuing the changes until the new order had been saved properly. Peter came up with the idea of having a translucent cover fading in over all the portfolios with an animated GIF indicator.
Screen shot of portfolios being reordered
This solved everything, except for one little nagging issue. While the indicator had to be there for slow connections, the average time for this re-sort was fractions of a second. The moment the new order was saved, the cover would disappear. I wanted our users to be able to get back to work as soon as possible, rather than being slowed down by in-the-way animations. The consequences of this decision were dark flashes over your portfolios when a user would re-sort.
It turns out the solution was to slow things down. After adding some effects it now fades in over a second, and then fades out over a few seconds. While this would seem like two seconds wasted, no one seems to have a problem with this. In fact, we have received great feedback about this effect. Many people ask me if all the portfolio stuff was coded in flash, to which I can answer, “nope, just good old fashion javascript.” Next time I’m faced with a confusing interface problem, I’m going to ask myself if the action has to be this fast. Maybe the best way to optimize the program is to slow it down.
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What other examples have you seen of software slowing down for the better?
Tags: Development, SmibsNet, Software
Overall, I think that people are looking for an enjoyable experience when they use software. Yes, efficiency and “speed” have something to do with that, but usability goes beyond just processing functions quickly.
This was a key difference between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs: Jobs would often go for an “esthetic” quality to software and hardware, something Gates admitted he didn’t always understand.