While perusing The Feed here on DesignDish, I happened across this item about the BP cleanup efforts. Wanting to know more, I clicked over to MSNBC.com for the full story. This is what I saw:

Check out this page at full size to get the full effect. In short, my first reaction was to close the browser window and huddle shaking in the corner of a cold shower. I felt assaulted; abused. This is information overload at its worst.

There’s a fair amount of psychology in play when designing a good interface. By “good”, I really mean “successful.” Even the prettiest interface fails if it doesn’t deliver the experience the user expects. In this case, I expected to see a news story about the oil spill cleanup. Instead, the top third of my browser is filled with 4 columns of unrelated data, the right half of the remaining space has ads, images, and more unrelated data – no, wait, that little thumbnail apparently correlates somehow – and I’ve got a toolbar clogging up the bottom of my browser and icons chasing me down the right edge. That leaves about 20% of my browser window for what I actually want to read.

Now take a look at this related story on the Christian Science Monitor:

Ahh, that’s better. But why is it better? Simple: because I came to the site to read a news story, and there it is right in front of me. Sure, this site has ads on the right side like the other one, but they’re easily dismissed because they look like ads; they’re not masquerading as site content. Look at the social media icons. They’re integrated, easily accessed, and unobtrusive. They manage to put 8 action items into a space less than half the size it takes the toolbar on the other site to organize 6, and without neutering my already-cramped window space. I’d estimate at least 70% of this layout is reserved for the actual content I came to see. I feel happy; not like I’m living out a Lifetime movie storyline.

There is so much more to this topic, and we’ll revisit it all at a later date. For now, the takeaway on content design is this: deliver what visitors expect, and keep the distractions to a minimum.