[Design Ideas] ING, Gmail, Trip Advisor

Good design: ING registration form

(Upon clicking “Enroll Now”)

We like the big obvious orange required field indicators, the real-time validation and the input formats on field focus. Very hard to make an error, attention to detail has made this a very efficient registration form.

Bad design: Gmail labels

(Login required)

What we dislike here is the ambiguity with labels. The user needs to understand that label colors can be changed by clicking on the light, barely-visible, gray squares. Names can be edited in 2 places but colors cannot be edited upon clicking “Edit Labels”. Designers should avoid in-between solutions. The functionality is either important enough to be part of the main interface or it is not; why hide something that was deemed important enough to be displayed up-front?

Interesting design: Trip Advisor pagination

We find the inconsistent pagination scheme (20 results on the first page, 50 on the following pages) on Trip Advisor interesting. We have a feeling that testing led to the realisation that shorter, less intimidating landing pages led to higher clickthrough rates… Just a hunch.

Suggested Reading:

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