It’s-a-me: Poor Design
What can Super Mario Bros teach us about UX/UI?
1. Everyone’s a critic.
It’s easier to tear something down than built something up.
In last week’s post I raised the sector-wide problem of poor user interface design in apps and software, highlighting some dubious choices in the rollout of Windows 8. This in turn showcased the design principle of “Flexibility”.
Like I tell my students though, it’s not productive to raise a problem without thinking of a potential solution.
This post coincides with the global rollout of the latest movie adaptation of Super Mario Bros, originally released in 1985 for the NES, the most famous game that most people on the planet have heard of or played.
It had everything - plumbers, moustaches, princesses, mushrooms, pipes, adventure - it dominated homes in the 1980s and continues to spark retro-vintage nostalgia to this day. Over 40 million copies sold worldwide, it clearly got something right (whether the latest cinematic adaptation succeeded seems to be up for debate).
2. Emotion
What did Mario and his pals get so right? In my humble opinion it comes back to the UX/UI design principle Emotion - creating a sense of satisfaction, pleasure, and accomplishment for users every time they use the software.
The clinking sound effects of the coins…
The graphical cues for extra strength after eating mushrooms (slightly questionable framing in retrospect)…
The animated chic of the side-scrolling stage design.
Everything was satisfying to play and replay time and time again.
“That’s not fair” I hear you say.
“This is a game, not a piece of software that’s designed for work”.
To which I say - why not both?
Gamification has a bit of a bad rep nowadays after every big corporation tried to make “working overtime” into a game where underpaid employees can “level up”, but why isn’t more professional software designed like a game?
Shouldn’t students want to log in to LMSs to access their study notes and lecture slides?
Shouldn’t your clients feel energised when looking through your portfolio?
Shouldn’t your team be engaged to collaborate online because of the system rather than in spite of it?
In my field of Education we spend so much money on software that is used by so many people - teachers, students, administrators, a little flair to capture our emotion as users wouldn’t hurt would it?
You can listen to the latest episode of “Crossover Connections with Jack Wang” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or YouTube.
3. Too much of a good thing
Not all emotion is positive, and efforts to provoke user response may of course backfire on the designer. One of the clearest examples of this is MySpace - the OG social networking platform, unbelievably popular in the mid-2000s with indie rock bands and college frat houses, but that’s really hard to believe when you look back at old screenshots now.
Cluttered and overwhelming, MySpace allowed users to customize their profiles with backgrounds, colors, and layouts of their own choice, to great chaotic effect. Flashy graphics, crazy animations, it again tried to do too much. I’m sure MySpace made a lot of different mistakes to lose the lead to Facebook and all the other upstarts in this space, but the main UX/UI principle it violated was aesthetics.
Software should be visually pleasing and consistent in design. Simple layouts, consistent typography and colours go a long way to make the user feel at ease with the app they’re using. This is not exclusive to software, good visual design works in any context you can think of - powerpoint slides in teaching, client presentations, TV advertisements.
Most scientists and engineers often scoff at visual design as a shiny veneer papering over lazy code, but I for one can concede it’s not my immediate area of expertise and I need help. With AI platforms like Mid-journey and Dall-E2though, that help looks more accessible and ethically ambiguous by the day.
Talk soon,
Jack.
