During my years as a UX designer, I've often been viewed as the "downer" - the naysayer, the one who wants to "take away features" or "prevent marketing from doing something really cool".

I've harped endlessly to my past employers, to employees or contractors working for Pampered Puppy, and to the thousands of pet-based businesses I deal with on a daily and weekly basis about these things:

1. Keeping it simple.
2. Using conventions when possible, where it makes sense to do so.
3. Don't confuse the user.

But the one thing I haven't spent enough time explaining is why I harp on this so.

There's one simple fact: YOUR visitor may visit ten or a hundred or a thousand other web sites in a single day.

Each of those web sites use different colors. Different typefaces and logos. Some of them place their important information on the left, the less important information on the right. Other web sites switch that around entirely and do the exact opposite.

Some companies call their shopping cart button "Add to Cart", "Add to Bag", "Buy Now" or one of a dozen other phrases. Most sites usually use a completely different size, shape, color and placement for those buttons.

In other words: the visitor, YOUR visitor, has already been assaulted by millions of different pieces of information in each design they've worked through before finding your site. Frankly it's amazing, with such a shifting landscape of user interaction, that anything ever gets purchased.

So here's what you want to do: you want to make it as easy as possible for the user to reach their goal.

You don't want to throw so many options at them, so many whirlygigs and marketingese and distractions, that they'll never get to where they want to go. Every human brain on the planet has a saturation point, and what's critical for business owners, programmers, marketers and UX designers alike to realize is that the brain coming to you is already saturated near the breaking point.

So next time you find yourself debating the difference between two options for your web site, think about this:

1. Which way is it most clear? Simplest is almost always best.

2. Which option best serves the main goal of the site, and what we want the user to do on the site?

3. Are we doing this because it's cool (or cute or fun or amusing or classy or elegant or "official sounding" or playful or "important to our investors"), or are we doing this to make the user's experience easier?

Would you rather have a cool web site, or one that makes sales?

That's what I thought you'd say.

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