A user interface’s personality is too often either misunderstood or simply neglected, and usually the overall user experience suffers as a result.
In the context of user interface design, even the term personality itself can be confusing. Luke Wroblewski’s Design Philosophy summarizes that
The combination of a site’s organization, interaction, and visual presentation creates and supports the personality of a Web site…
and that
an appropriate and evocative personality not only tells the right story to your audience, but it also provides distinction, appeal, and wholeness to your site.
In short, tailoring navigation, layout, color, and messaging to your audience shapes not only how they’ll use your web site, but also how they’ll feel about the experience as well.
Audience Considerations
However, some people may argue that many web sites or applications are simply utilitarian: the user should be able accomplish his or her task without inconvenience.
Others may claim that spartan software with more functionality will be more appealing than software with fewer features but more personality.
But before we make sweeping generalizations that these people will always like that software and those people will always approve of this software, we must remind ourselves that the personality of web site must be tailored to its users.
Do EKG monitors need personality? Or do heads-up-display interfaces in jet aircraft cockpits require a fun interface? Of course not. The priority shifts from providing the user that aforementioned “appeal and “wholeness” of the experience to relaying critical information free of distraction or clutter.
In other words, systems need to balance useful functionality with a well-planned strategic personality. Unfortunately this is easier said than done.
Case Study
I recently purchased a Garmin Forerunner 305 to track my training as I prepare for four triathlons, a few ten mile races, and a half-marathon this year. It’s a GPS-enabled personal training device that can monitor my heart rate, distance, time, an estimate of calories burned, and a few other assorted data from each running or cycling workout.
While the device’s screen provides summaries of each workout, the device sends the GPS information and each workout’s data to my computer where I can view the relationships of each workout or a number of workouts over time.
Garmin provides its own software for analyzing my workouts, but the data can be imported by a number of other applications that aren’t developed by Garmin or its partners.
We’ll examine Garmin’s own Garmin Training Center, Berbie Software’s Trail Runner, and SportTracks by Five Zone Software, plus the less-robust Nike + system to determine if these user interfaces’ personalities enhance the user experience.
Welcome/Home Screens
The Garmin Training Center and Nike + display a home screen, whereas Trail Runner and SportTracks show the latest workout.
Garmin Training Center
Unfortunately, the Garmin Training Center default screen is devoid of any personality or utility. It simply reminds me I was born 31 years ago and my weight from when I entered it in January, and my name. In addition, there are also numerous codes and zones, though they’re not tailored to my performance.
Nike +
The Nike + home screen takes a different approach. Instead, the welcome screen displays the latest workout, complete with a Flash-based animated jogger showing bouts of extended speed and exertion.
Here we can see the stark differences in an application’s personality by comparing the Nike + screen and that of the Garmin Training Center. It should be said that Nike’s intentions are likely different than those of Garmin’s, after all, as this web site is clearly a vehicle to drive their following to purchase new products.
It may also seem unfair to compare a Nike product, which no doubt has been combed over many times by their marketing and interactive agencies, to Garmin’s software that some may view almost as an afterthought to the device itself.
But simply seeing these screens together shows just how little attention or thought was given to the Garmin interface, even down to the decision to show the user’s birthday, weight, and name as primary information, leaving the workouts on the left as secondary.
Individual Workouts
Each of the GPS-enabled applications incorporate some map visualization into the interface, though some implementations are more crude than others. For example, the Trail Runner system uses Google Maps, but the Garmin system appears to be a custom-built mapping engine, and looks like it belongs back in 1985.
Trail Runner:
The Trail Runner interface uses the Aqua interface components to deliver a consistent experience with the Mac user’s other applications.
This interface helps define the distinction between a good personality and a usable product. It certainly looks the best, using the aforementioned Google Maps API, icons instead of burying everything in pulldown controls, and using color to connote similarities and differences between data. Unfortunately, there are numerous usability problems at the task and process level, and not necessarily as a result of poor interface design.
That being said, an adaptable interface would be a huge blessing to the overall experience. Though I will likely never go back to using the Nike + system, or use my iPhone instead of my Forerunner, these icons will stay cluttered at the top of the primary navigation as long as I use the software. More advanced, or niche features, such as saving routes, managing my exercise plans and more may be better served for someone who uses the application for more than tracking runs, calories, and how frequently I exercise.
Perhaps crystallizing the argument that a good user experience can almost trump a less useful application, the personality of the Trail Runner application keeps me wanting to return to it, even though the system’s shortcomings continue to frustrate me.
Garmin Training Center
These screenshots from both Vista and Mac OS show that the bare, utilititarian application addresses the simplest use case: it displays how far I ran, where I went, and it shows my heart rate throughout the activity.
Vista top | Mac OS below
Where is its personality? Good question. The system buttons, controls, and components don’t tell any more of a story than a balance sheet. But the interface stays out of my way, unlike the more attractive Trail Runner. In fact, if I didn’t know that this interface represented a person’s run, I’d probably assume it was graphing some complex engineering system.
Nike +
The Nike interface simply shows what data it has to work with: time and distance, and the speed over which that distance was traveled.
The bumps in the line indicate when the runner’s speed increases, and does not represent moving uphill or downhill as could be inferred by the running animation.
But even with the broken mental model of running uphill as an increase in speed, the interface still features more polish than the more advanced Garmin Training Center, and summarizes the information more prominently than the Trail Runner.
The soft shadows, gradients, and reflections all suggest a refined, sophisticated experience. It’s also similar to many of Apple’s design assets, which strengthens the holistic bond between the shoe, pedometer, and iPod. And even though some of us in the design community may be tired of this look, it’s likely still perceived by their wider users as professional and accessible.
SportTracks
The SportTracks workout interface provides a unique approach compared to the earlier interfaces discussed here.
The personality is certainly down to business moreso than the Nike + system; the rows of data from prior workouts in the Daily Activity panel provide more context to the most recent workout (found in the Summary panel). Some could argue that the interface doesn’t prioritize data effectively: quickly scanning the screen may not indicate where I should focus or what’s most important. But perhaps that lack of heirarchy is part of the application’s personality: it’s designed to be put to work but flexible in how you use its features.
Workout Summary Screens
The summary screens don’t deviate from the personalities established by the screens discussed earlier.
The Garmin Training Center elects to display only numeric totals of distance and elapsed time in the top of table columns, whereas the Nike + system provides no numeric value of how far the user has run.
It’s unfortunate the Garmin Training Center doesn’t borrow from the SportTracks system and display a chart of my long runs compared to my tempo runs or cycling workouts; instead I get a crude map of Central America, central Africa and southern India.
The SportTracks (below) summary interface maintains it’s rather bland personality while still keeping its data front and center. I’m curious if additional data such as heart rate could have been represented using color in each bar representation of a workout.
Conclusion
These applications are proof that an interface’s personality can enhance the user experience. However, relying on such personality to compensate for usability shortcomings or limited features is difficult at best.
Determining what tasks users will want and use and the various mental models of how those users will engage with the system’s features are far more critical than applying gradients to backgrounds. But when those backgrounds, in addition to layout, color, and language, cohesively align with how the user expects the web site or application to behave, a personality can develop that the satisfied user will turn to time and again.
