Imagine a fish stall at a market. A long brown wooden counter covered with a layer of crushed ice and a selection of the seas finest, all laying on their side with one lifeless eye gazing up at you. The stench of raw fish permeates through the surrounding area. The sign above the stall reads “Fresh Fish Sold Here!”. You’ve been hired to re-write this sign. What words are unnecessary?
- Fresh — As opposed to stale, rotting, disgusting?
- Fish — If you can see the stall and smell the fish, you’re not gonna think it’s lamb.
- Sold — As opposed to what, Fresh Fish Socialise Here?
- Here — As opposed to there?
Most people will assume all of the above. It’s unlikely someone sees a table full of fish and thinks “Hmm, I must have stumbled upon the burial site from a recent fish holocaust, I should alert the EU”.
In the pursuit of usability it’s easy to assume users are bumbling idiots who are seven cans short of a six pack, and label the forms accordingly. Often on the web you’ll see form inputs with a label, a prefilled example, and a clarification. The quest for usability can result in noisy forms, which appear more complicated than they ever should.
It’s important to realise the difference between making a usable form, and labelling the shit out of every control on the screen. When you’re labelling your applications, always bear in mind who you’re writing the labels for. Some things are plain obvious until over-explained.
13 Comments
The fresh fish example is borrowed from Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds, but I believe it has been used in journalism classes for many years now.
Posted by Des Traynor at 2:54 pm on 9 September, 2008.
But if every fish stall you have visited had that sign and you come across one that doesnt wont you be a little uneasy? You might not know what is missing but that little niggle at the back of the mind might be enough to make you uneasy…. But of course the visual presentation of fresh fish on unmelted ice should be enough. So if you lose one element be extra careful to get the other right.
Posted by Alan O'Rourke at 3:23 pm on 9 September, 2008.
Hmm. Expectations and experience; If you’re going to do things differently than every other fishmonger, better be confident that a) you can bridge the gaps you’re creating between the customer and his body of experience with fishfiddling and b) that those gaps are going to improve your returns somehow. I appreciate that designers don’t like being told to do things the same way everybody else does, but going too far against the grain can be counter-productive, even if your solution is the best thing since sliced fish. If it’s too far from how Microfish or AppleCore&Fish do their thing, folks are going to pass by your stall before they realise you are indeed a viable option for satisfying their fish-related needs.
Marketing and branding; whilst it might be obvious that there’s fish to be had, I want my customers not just thinking “there’s some fish over here”, but “I want to sell you fresh fish, right here”, which generally has more appealing connotations. It’s about planting notions in customers heads, guiding their perceptions, shaping their experience a bit (or so I imagine, I know little about psychology and less about marketing).
Just a couple cents off the top of my head.
Posted by Dave Cahill at 4:04 pm on 9 September, 2008.
If there’s that much of a stench, I don’t think that the fish can be all that fresh.
Posted by Simon McGarr at 4:25 pm on 9 September, 2008.
I think you completely forced the whole fish story and how it relates to web design just so as you could make use of a photo of lots of dead fish and therefore be cool.
Nice website this - very nice.
Posted by Shane at 5:00 pm on 9 September, 2008.
I didn’t say I was doing things different to every other fishmonger.
The point of the post is redundant labelling, maybe forget the fish for a second.
Unnecessary labelling does not aid usability.
I see a lot of forms that totally over-do labelling. I’m not proposing that you produce blank web forms, I’m suggesting that adding redundant labels doesn’t help anyone and may occasionally hinder.
Posted by Des Traynor at 5:29 pm on 9 September, 2008.
Shane, fair enough. I didn’t really force it though. It’s on page 111 on Presentation Zen, and it talks how stating the obvious in slide design increases visual noise and hinders the slide. I’ll post examples of places I see this in web form design.
Posted by Des Traynor at 5:31 pm on 9 September, 2008.
I know its fish, its fresh and you’re selling it but I don’t know how much it costs. I’m not sure how you would extrapolate that to good web design though!
Posted by Marie at 9:56 pm on 9 September, 2008.
Great point, well made. I understanding where you’re driving and agree.
It’s worth making a note though about positioning and purpose.
Where is the sign? If it’s beside the fish it’s redundant. If it’s not then it might not be. If it’s large and high enough to be seen from a distance then it could have a different purpose.
If designed to draw the eye to make customers aware of what the stall does before they can actually see or smell the fish then it is useful.
Although as you point out “FISH” would be all that would really be necessary then.
Posted by Anton at 12:29 am on 11 September, 2008.
Marie - True - providing new information is worthwhile - repeating the obvious is unnecessary.
Anton - yeah, you’re right. If the sign is to attract attention it makes sense, if the sign is to provide information then it’s pointless. Should it even say Fish though? Is it needed at all?
Posted by Des at 10:54 am on 11 September, 2008.
Restating the obvious is pointless, clearly.
What you really need is more info:
herring caught this morning £3.50/kg
usually fishmongers do this on a blackboard, and put it in the street to trip up passers by.
Posted by da bishop at 1:09 pm on 12 September, 2008.
as i was reading down this thread,
first, anton puts it right: the sign makes sense only if posted for those at some distance or passing by to help identify the fish table at this market
then, da bishop “stole my line” - exactly that, you may want to be just a bit more specific:
not just “fish”, but “[kind of fish]“, not just “fresh” (i picked up ice cream package today in a supermarket. valid through 2010. go argue w producers it is not still fresh in December 2009) but “caught [when]“, not just “sold here” but - omitting [available] - providing right away (presumable competitive) “at [price] per kg”.
Posted by Andrei K at 6:08 pm on 14 September, 2008.
How far away from the stall are you when you’re deciding where in the market to go?
Posted by frankp at 5:30 pm on 22 September, 2008.