Bonus-centred design

By Nic Price on 23 November 2007 — 1 min read

We’ve all seen it.

The dreaded “Skip Intro”.

The picture of the boss on the homepage obscuring any useful content or functionality.

I was just discussing this with a friend and came up with a new name for an old problem “Bonus-centred design”

Here’s how it works:

  • Take direct orders from the boss. Do not ask questions
  • Do not clarify purpose
  • Remember the boss knows what good design is – it must be interactive have things you can click to make other things move around
  • Do not under any circumstances talk to potential users of the site
  • You only need one person to test with. The boss
  • Do tell the boss how many hits the site will get. Forget about task completion
  • Do your best to get a video of the boss on the homepage welcoming people to this amazing online experience
  • Reinforce the design with company branding at every opportunity. The more suited to busines cards and company stationery the better
  • Make it all about the company and not about the people who use your products and services
  • Do not worry about accessibility. It takes time and costs money. And anyway the software supplier assures their product will have an accessibility patch very soon

I’m sure there are more…

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  • Nic,
    minus the video of the boss on the home page, the points you listed are familiar.
    But how does one get around it? how does one convince the ‘boss’ that the users are the ‘real’ stakeholders’ and not the boss?.

    That flash does not make the site interesting, only serves as temporary distraction
    That user testing is of value
    That accessibility is an issue
    That if you have 20 images on your page and you get 21 hits, that pretty much means you have 1 viewer?

    Answers on a post card please

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