Anyway, as a person that develops Web sites for a living (or part of my living, at least), I’m sometimes terribly annoyed when I find a site that doesn’t work or make sense. As a person that likes to think he knows what he’s doing when it comes to Web sites, if I can’t figure out something, I can’t imagine that the less knowledgeable person could. I think getting UI right is hard for people as it can be difficult imagining how others might use the software or site you’ve developed. I’ll provide more specific recommendations on this subject soon, but I wanted to mention this as a recent area of interest now just so you know what to expect in the next couple of weeks in this blog.

One particular idea I’ll throw out here was presented at one of the Adobe MAX sessions I attended. That speaker talked about how you should be “an ambassador for the end user”, which is a nice phrase and a good reminder. He also pointed out that while you’re developing software or a Web site for a client, they often won’t be the ones interfacing with your creation. So as a Web developer, you need to hit the mark between giving the client what they think they want and giving the end user what they really need.