Make everything useful

Posted by Jaan on November 7th, 2008 | Add your comment

Pretty web sites are nice. Functional ones rock. Those that combine form with function, and add something extra to the mix, are brilliant.

I love the Leica site’s flash load progress bar. Not only does it show how much of the file that has loaded, it indicates where in the file the different views of the D-Lux 3 are located. It’s informative, it’s clever and it conveys the feeling of solid quality and attention to detail. Much like a Leica camera.

Leica could have gone with the standard percentage load indicator, slapped on “Next view” and “Previous view” arrows and the site visitors would still have seen the camera. But that would have made the experience bland, basic and less useful (a download counter doesn’t tell me which views I’ll see once the file is complete, nor does it allow me to star viewing the already downloaded parts).

Want to exude quality? Make everything on your site or in your app useful.