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Comment by mden | Hacker News Reader

Trying to be clever is the main thing that has led to progress and eventual better design.

Amazon's drop down menu comes to mind - http://bjk5.com/post/44698559168/breaking-down-amazons-mega-...

Ah, I think you missed the point. Amazon's solution to the menu behavior, yes, is clever. But what it presents to the user is not. It is a dropdown menu, that looks like every other drop down menu ever made. It's not novel at all in that respect. A user sees it, and they instantly know what it is, and how it works.

Yes, Amazon did something clever to make it work as well as it does, but barely anyone even notices that there's anything special about it. It 'just works'.

That's key. The actual design pattern here didn't change at all. It just works better.

Can you make something work better? Do it. Are you trying something because "icons and folders are a dated idea"? Then don't.

Fair enough, but then wasn't the idea of icons and folders considered clever at some point in the way you are describing. It seems that the vast majority of design is not better than the current accepted standard, but every so often someone designs something which is good and becomes the new standard. At some point you have to be willing to do something potentially stupid if you have any interest in pushing the boundaries or am I still missing the point you are making?

I think gmail's redesign from a few years ago falls into what you are describing - trying to design something more "modern and clever" which in some way was to the detriment of the users (at least if you were judging by the reception and all the critique). But at the same time if you don't try to maintain a more modern interface I think you risk being left behind, so you have to balance "clever" with "expected" design.

What is your intended goal in 'pushing the boundaries'? Where is the reasoning? Are you making life better for people, or are you confusing them? What is 'falling behind' in design? Does your product work well? Is it easy to use?

If you believe something has to change, just because it should, then I think you're coming from the wrong place. You have customers that depend on you, your job is to serve them, not some sort of need to invent the next great design revolution.

Most problems already have some sort of solution for them. When you make a claim that your solution is better than the existing solution you often provide a better UX in some respects. For this you have to make design decisions some of which don't have an accepted standard. This is where you are pushing the boundaries.

On the other hand, UI style and UX naturally improves over time. Compare Windows 95 and Windows 7. There are certainly style and UX changes in the latter that are superior. A lot of people may not like Window's Ribbon interface but I think it was definitely an interesting new design, one which I think will in the long term prove to be better than plain drop down menus.

So I guess I am making the claim that if you are really invested in your product you probably have ideas on how it could be improved and a lot of those ideas are uncertain but deserve time to be attempted.

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