Designing Web Interfaces

Part II. Keep It Lightweight

Digg is a popular news site where the community votes on its favorite stories. If you see a story on Digg that you like you can vote your approval with a simple click action on the “digg it” button (Figure 69).

Figure 69. Digg makes it easy to vote to digg articles with the “digg it” button next to each article

It wasn’t always this simple. Kevin Rose founded Digg to democratize the finding of tech articles. In the earliest versions of Digg, the user had to complete a two-step process to digg a story (Figure 70).

Figure 70. The first version of Digg required a two-page process to “digg” a story

In the current version of Digg it’s much simpler—just click the “digg it” button, and the vote is immediately recorded (Figure 71).

Figure 71. Digg now uses a “digg it” button to immediately record a “digg” within the same page

Kevin Rose has noted that changing to a one-step process had a huge impact on the number of stories being dug and thus on the success of his site. Here ...