Every now and then we’ll hear potential clients say they want something “out of the box.” They want something no one has done before. But we found that you must tread lightly when embarking upon creating the “new.”

When creating an application interface or a navigation scheme for a web site there are established patterns that users are accustomed to seeing and using. The usual layout of top nav, sidebar nav, body, and footer are common foundation elements that provide cues for the user. So when you hear someone say, “Let’s remove the top nav.” Or “Move the sidebar nav to the bottom because I think it’s kinda neat.” Please beware!

Moving foundation elements around because you think it will create something new may satisfy the “new” objective but will most likely fail miserably in the usability department. I can recall a great looking main page for an emerging designer’s web site. Great bold typography, incredible color usage, but it failed horribly because he had no navigation cues. The user was forced to click around on the screen to find a link.

Now don’t take this post as a call to create the mediocre. It’s not that at all. But know what you’re getting into first. I had a design instructor that said, “you must know the rule before you can break it.” And now I get that. In the quest to create something new breaking conventions just to break them is not new. It’s actually quite trite.

However, if you discover that you can break a convention and still make the interaction intuitive you have truly found yourself creating something new and fresh. So next time you embark upon the journey to make something new, think about all the rules you have learned so far. And remember patterns are in place for a reason. If you can make something new AND easy to use then you are truly an innovator and reinvention won’t kill your user experience.

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