Micro-Macro detailed design

Working with different products I see some differences in the level of detail each one goes to. Look at two contrasting examples: Search Results page vs. Product Promotional Page. Search Results page is the highest level of detail (Micro Details); all aspects of design are detailed to the core; be it interactions, information – how much; how long; what to show, visual design, design research/usability – usage, eye tracking, semantics, etc. All aspects that are possible generally are thoroughly considered to build a design.

One the other hand we have Product Promotional Pages – high on experience; informative but not so thoroughly evaluated, less interaction, less complexity in Information architecture etc. So generally if you are designing this you don’t get through a thorough screening of the design (Macro details).

I kept thinking why do we have such variation? And I thought may be there are three basic reasons:

Impact on business
Products that are very high on business impact are very ‘cautious’. Any changes or design issues could affect the company drastically. So every company get very careful in designing and every element of design are reviewed to make sure the effect is positive. Thus more details in designing.

Impact to user or habit forming
Traffic on site and usage is another important reason for a detailed design. Products like Search, Calendar or even some online enterprise software need to build a habit in users. They need to be learnt and should be easy. One advantage of habit forming is to build a loyalty around that product – like Google Search. To build a habit you need to have a compelling product; thus need a well thought out design.

Competition Landscape
Fierce competition could also lead to detailed design approach. Competition is fighting for both the above parameters – Business and Traffic/Users. Thus if you have a competition it makes you more cautious in design.

Impact Matrix
Micro Detailed design or more detailed design requires a lot of resources and time. The decision making is slow and thorough; thus it takes more thinking, iterations, approvals and research. It all comes down to the question of how many resources (in terms of time, money, people etc) versus the impact. And I guess we evaluate the the above three parameters we could make a rough guess about this. We could make a matrix to evaluate the impact.

Let make it for search results page.

Impact | Importance
Business | High
User | High
Competition | High

For Product Promotional (micro sites) site
Impact | Importance
Business | Low
User | Low
Competition | Low

For Yahoo! Front Page
Impact | Importance
Business | High
User | High
Competition | Moderate to High (mostly indirect competition)

As a next step we could built out some concrete evaluation parameters to figure out High, Moderate or Low importance.

Suggestions are welcome :)

In search of Universal Design. But does it exist?

Few days back I met my old friend as usual we started a discussion. It was quite an interesting topic – Localization of design. The debate started on a point saying – can there be a single design which works for all regions/countries/cultures?

The inner feeling say ‘obviously no’ but then look around us, ipods, cell phone or a TV. Why is it that ipod has been successful in most cultures? Why do cell phones have same interactions regardless of the culture/region? There is something about these which goes beyond the boundaries of cultural understanding? Go to US, UK, Korea, India or any other place you would find people using ipods or cellphone pretty much the same way.

I guess there are basically two reasons –

New learning (?)
Gadgets or technology needs to be ‘learnt’. Thus regardless of cultural understanding everyone has to learn it the pretty much the same way. This goes beyond cultural understanding – Can we say, “gadgets/technology unify the human race?” It’s premature to say but in some ways it may binds us all together with a common ‘language - a behavioral language of technology’. When I go to another culture I may be alien but I would still know how to use a iphone or a TV or say Yahoo! page. Language and to a less extent icons could be cultural; icons could still be learnt quickly. Apart from that interactions and behaviors are universal, I feel. So this ‘new learning’ may allow us to transcend the cultural barrier.

Basic Human Psychology (?)
Another thing might be an inner common human psychology which is beyond the cultural understanding. Do we all like Apple feel? Why do we? Is it because it in some ways uses elements that we as human beings like – say wet table feel, continuity in interactions, smooth edges etc.? Are there elements that we see all around us in offline world that we like? I guess if we could translate elements that we like in offline world into products we design it ‘may’ create similar effects in us as humans -going beyond cultures.

Sorry for a badly written post.