What Makes a Good Web Application?

Web Application Design Is Different: The Obvious Things | What Is Really Different with Good Web Applications? | Ingredients of Good Websites | Caveats

While typical styleguides boast with rules for developing application, they usually leave the question open, what really comprises a good - in this case, web - application. This page tries to fill this gap and discusses what sets the web and web applications apart from traditional applications.

Web Application Design Is Different: The Obvious Things

First of all, there are the obvious and visible things that set the web apart - some of these were already discussed in the introduction. The web is

A publishing medium
It uses text, font styles, paragraphs, headlines, advertising, positioning of elements, use of colors, and shapes
Multimedia
It uses graphics, animation, video, sound, chat, ...
Simple point-and-click interaction
There is no data entry, but read, decide, and click a link
Easy to navigate: Web application structure requires no mental model
There is straightforward navigation between screens via hyperlinks
Impatient users: Web users are like TV watchers
Quick enjoyment or immediate click to another website - it must be fun

But these ingredients do not suffice for a deeper understanding of the changes, which the web brought to the world of computing, as will be shown next.

What Is Really Different with Good Web Applications?

The relation between the people and computers has changed with the rise of the web. The following graphic tries to capture this new relationship, where individual, but much more social and community aspects play an important role. The web has become a nearly unlimited medium for exchange of information, but also social aspects. The computer is no longer a singular tool for doing some isolated work. Like the telephone or TV it is a connection to the world, sometimes active like the phone, sometimes passive like the TV, or often a mixture of both.

Figure 1: The web creates a new form of interaction between humans and computer systems

Good web applications capture this spirit of the web. In the web world, work practice is adequately translated into mindful, meaningful, and passionate interactions. The web:

Uses social communication between people working together
Examples: auctions, chats, share your thoughts, share information (community, belonging to places)
Is like listening to a story or watching a movie
=> ordering and content of a sequence of screens gives a special user experience
Uses emotion to empower people to buy
=> excitement, engagement, surprise, fun (e.g. a CD that would make me cry)
Is visually branded
=> nice layout and use of graphics and colors
Gives the feeling of being in an unlimited space by just clicking on from hyperlink to hyperlink
=> information zoo on demand
Provides added value for the user compared to real world processes
Examples: book judges from buyers; more magical reads

Examples

Added Value: A bicycle website adds value by explaining the phenomenon of "rolling friction“
Communities: Chat, news groups gather around common interests or hobbies
Engagement, Excitement, Fun: Games, "cult" sites (e.g. the "New Beetle" website)

Ingredients of Good Websites

Good websites have two important ingredients - a unique appearance and unique contents.

Appearance

A unique appearance is the result of

Creative use of elements and styles
Branding elements
Designs made by Web designers

Content

Unique content is what makes a website successful in the long run.

It matters, what a website has to offer to its visitors beyond a cool design
In a sales-oriented site, tell the user, what makes your products so unique, different, and special
Give a clear call to action = be direct

-> The web constitutes a new type of products

Caveats

The web reality, however, is dominated by bad design examples. Here are some of the problems that users might face on the web.

Lost in Hyperspace

Though the navigation via hyperlinks is very easy, users also get very easily lost in the space that is created by the links. If there is no clear indication where users are, they either get lost or at least cannot utilize the information and functionality of the web site or application.

Unclear Links - Erring in Hyperspace

Links with no meaningful labels puzzle users and may cause lots of backwards navigation, because users step into unwanted areas, or they cannot find the destination where they want to got to.

Design Overkill

Many websites try to impress their visitors with a cool graphic design. However, often the structure of such cleverly designed sites is at best confusing and the functionality hard to find and use.

Many successful websites, especially US websites, do not excel with respect to the graphic design. But their structure and functionality are well designed, and users find and can do what they want. Moreover it is often the little bells and whistles which provide additional value to users.

A cool design can even lead to more frustration, when users fail to use a website - a cool graphic design raises high expectations, which are not met.

Scrolling

"Users do not scroll", was on of the first "Do not's" in the web literature. In the meantime, this statement has been weakened, because web users have learnt that scrolling is necessary on the web. But it is still true that important information and functionality should not be hidden from the users at the end of a long page. Users must be able to immediately recognize the purpose and possibilities of a page without scrolling.

Anarchy

The web has many faces, and many design solutions for identical problems. Often people blame certain solutions, because they think that these are not "web-like". But what is web-like? And what is the best solution for a problem? The web is inhabited by the contributions of millions of people, ranging from laymen to highly professional people. The quality of the contributions varies with respect to contents as well as graphic and interaction design. Many web authors even do not bother much with these things and simply want to present useful information.

On the other hand, certain standards and design solutions emerge, for example, navigation bars to the left or top of a page. But even these "standard solutions" vary much more than design solutions for traditional business software. For companies like SAP, which sell coherent packages or components of web applications, further considerations like "family resemblance" and branding come into play. Also usability standards have to be observed, of course in the context of the technical and design options that the web provides.

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