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Has del.icio.us got rhythm?
I’ve always been a big delicious fan. For me, it’s always been an application that just works. Looks like I’m not alone either. Yahoo’s acquisition and the splurge of mimics are certainly testament to the fact that delicious is indeed a great concept.
But, to me, it’s more than just a concept. It’s a great application, executed with real thought, precision and attention to detail. Simple as it may be, the interface has charmed me since day one. Every piece off functionality seems to be where I want it, when I need it. Visual design clearly plays its role - the site’s minimal features accentuating functionality over fuss. Yet presentation is only the first stage of the user-experience. How these visual elements relate to one another during interaction is the next and it is at this level where rhythm may play a role.
At a generic level, rhythm can be thought of as an expression of regularity. In musical terms, it often forms the backbone of a piece, binding the song and guiding its listener. Breaking a user-experience down in a similar manner, reveals that any task is composed of a series of steps. Consider for example, the basic task of posting a link to your delicious account. The task is comprised of a number of simple steps:
- Click ‘post to delicious’ bookmarklet
- Enter any required notes
- Tag the entry
- Save
Delicious’ simple, task-focused interface allows these steps to be carried out quickly, efficiently and crucially at a pace that avoids frustration setting in. As each new objective is formalised so the relevant controls are made available to the user (often via Ajax). As a result, each phase of a task is completed at a satisfying, regular pace that correlates with the cognitive process driving it.
A piece of music is often ruined by a bad rhythm. In a similar way, the user-experience will be compromised if a system has to be used at an unnatural or irregular pace. A fluctuating rhythm may jar with the user-objectives of the moment and as a result have an immediate negative effect.
My experience of delicious is that the steps that make up the most common tasks, occupy both a brief and comparable time-frame. The pattern that these create constitute the system’s rhythm and in delicious’ case this lends itself to a rewarding user-experience.
Before I sign-off I should add that all this is pure speculation (isn’t that what a blog is for?). Having said that, I don’t see why a set of metrics couldn’t be set up to test this theory. In fact, I’d imagine it would be a fairly simple exercise that could be conducted in the all new Cimex user-testing suite. Videos of users carrying out identical tasks on similar services should be enough data to start extracting some comparative timings. Delicious versus Magnolia perhaps?