Few things present a bigger challenge to today’s designers than building a web-based application. The constraints of HTML, the complex requirements of the business, the restrictions of the thin-client model, the demands on the back-end, and the intricacies of the domain all come together making George Clooney’s job in the Perfect Storm look simple and carefree.

Part of the complexity comes from our inexperience at building these types of applications. Every project feels like it is breaking new ground, bringing us into unchartered territory.

However, we’re not alone. There are hundreds of projects like ours going on at the same time. And hundreds that have already been completed.

Learning from what has come before us is a key part of growth. What obstacles am I going to run into? What are my design options? These questions get easier with experience — from our work and from the work of others doing similar things.

It’s hard to take the time to see what others have done. That’s why we were very excited when Hagan Rivers told us about her latest project: She’s been studying hundreds of web applications, carefully cataloging and deconstructing them, to see what works and what doesn’t.

In today’s UIEtips, Hagan shares with UIE’s Christine Perfetti some of the lessons she’s picked up. I found it a fascinating read and I’m betting you will too.

If you’re working on web applications, you really want to sign up for Hagan’s full-day seminar at the User Interface 10 Conference. This is the second year she’s presenting it, with updated information, and last year it was definitely a high point of the conference. I sat in on her session, just riveted by the amazing detail she gleaned from every site she’s studied. The 300+ pages of notes are amazing in themselves. (You can see more information about her session here.)

Are you working on web applications? How have you found the transition from the previous work you’ve done? I’d love to hear what challenges you’ve faced and how you’ve overcome them. Just add a comment below.

Before I send you off to read Hagan’s interview, I have a couple of things to tell you:

First, I’ll be in the DC area on 8/23 and have time to make some client visits. If you’d like me to visit your offices and meet with your group, pop me an email. I probably can’t meet with everyone, but I’ll try to squeeze in as many folks as I can. (If there’s a real demand, I’ll see about extending my trip.)

Second, we’ve been busy working on our latest venture, our new blog: UIE’s Brain Sparks. Every week, we generate a ton of interesting findings in our research. We’ve put them into an easy-to-access daily blog format, which you can see here.

Finally, if you’re in the Boston area, I hope you’ll come to our first Brain Sparks Live event. We’re planning to do one of these every few months, first in Boston, then expanding to other cities. It’s a great way to catch up on our latest research and meet the other brains who are here in the Boston area. We’ve already had a huge number of people sign up and space is limited, so you want to sign up here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 11th, 2005 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Letters, UIE . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.