“The purpose of this article is to help designers avoid mistakes and to help them choose (or design) components based on sound, fundamental principles of usability.
Before I get into that, let me explain what I mean by a component. A component is the most granular piece of an interface. For instance, a component might be something for a user to make a selection from a list, choose ranges, or to enter, edit, and view data. This would include drop-down lists, text entry boxes, sliders, editable text, and others. Sometimes components are called controls.
Selecting and using good components is a very important part of the design process. It would be easy to write a spec that says “drop-down list goes here,” “editable data field goes here,” but we need to do more than that. All drop-down lists are not created equal. Some are inherently usable, and others are terrible. Designers need to be mindful about how every component works—from how it displays on screen, what triggers it, what feedback it provides, and what happens when the user finishes an action. Designers shouldn’t leave component selection to developers, and developers shouldn’t assume their favorite component library is actually usable.” (Donna Spencer for UX Magazine) Full article
