1 Untitled

“A site designed for flow must appeal to new users and power users alike. It must stretch both sets of users in a way they find enjoyable rather than daunting.”

This is the key point in turning first time visitors into power users no matter if the site is designed for flow or not.

Great article.

posted at 01:32 pm on December 04, 2007 by Lasse Larvanko

2 Untitled

Great article, as usual.

It’s interesting to think about how flow differs from user to user, in terms of internet connection, processor speed, mouse/keyboard preference, etc. The hard/fun part is optimizing this for all users.

posted at 04:48 pm on December 04, 2007 by Paul Bruns

3 Good content sucks

To borrow a line from Jared Spool, “Good content must suck” a user toward their goal. The user must feel like they are “on the scent” always getting closer to what they want.

Same goes for flow.

posted at 05:27 pm on December 04, 2007 by John Lascurettes

4 Accessibility and Standards

The key, I think, to good flow is usability and accessibility. If for instance you ever tried to read Gmail with Lynx, or use a screen reader on a lot of the flash sites out there you’ll find that at some point even the coolest interface has a limit.

I see the true test of “flow” is if the important parts are accessible, clear and intuitive even to the simplest of HTML agents and offer something special and visually pleasing to the most advanced clients.

Flow in a site that is mostly content means clear, easy to follow and catchy copy. Flow for a web application or tool means that your lead from start to finish without getting stuck because of either long page loads or user confusion from bad design choices.

posted at 06:09 pm on December 04, 2007 by Jeremy Streich

6 Untitled

Great article Jim, thank you.

posted at 07:19 pm on December 04, 2007 by Jamison Wieser

7 User Interface

They’ve avoided forcing an unnecessarily complex interface on their users because they’ve thought beyond how the data goes into the database.

I think that sentence provides the best summary of your article. Excellent!

posted at 07:43 pm on December 04, 2007 by Aaron Burrows

8 Nice

I love articles about flow. I did a very similar one a few years ago: http://tc.eserver.org/15162.html

Nice work. I’m glad someone’s keeping the concept alive. Users should be challenged!

posted at 12:12 am on December 05, 2007 by Joshua Fruhlinger

9 Untitled

Interesting article. Love the artwork!

posted at 10:15 am on December 05, 2007 by Nikolay Spassov

10 Feel the Flow

It’s odd that when a tool has good flow you barely notice how easy accomplishing a task is.

Looking forward to more flow =)

posted at 06:34 am on December 06, 2007 by Beau Smith