The Flexibility and Efficiency of Use principle states, “Shortcuts — hidden from novice users — may speed up the interaction for the expert user so that the design can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.”
A previous client once wanted to build a complex Experience Cloud login page. It would have tons of help text and extra features that catered entirely to the basic user. But the design completely forgot about the expert user.
All that fluff would seem like noise and be a distraction to someone who has logged in more than once.
And as someone who logs into multiple Salesforce instances, I wish they would offer a “Do Not Disturb” option to disable all “helpful” popup notifications across of the instance. Salesforce clearly didn’t design for the implementation partner with multiple clients.
So, there are two ways to make a flexible and efficient system:
Multiple methods to accomplish the same task according to one’s preferences. In Salesforce, this can mean creating two identical apps, one with the Standard navigation and the other with the Console navigation. This allows users to use the navigation style of their choice.
Accelerators are elements that don’t slow down inexperienced users, but speed up advanced users. Shortcuts, a Select All option in data tables, and running large processing asynchronously are all good examples of accelerators.
The takeaway
Remember you’ll have two types of users, basic and expert. You need to design systems with both in mind. Provide guidance to the beginner, so they can become advanced. Don’t slow down the expert, because they know what they are doing.