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Making a simple and usable interface
What is simplicity? Simplicity is the property of being effortless, plain and easy to understand. It is not surprising then that simplicity is often thrived for in user interface design. Often people intuitively dislike complication in devices and applications. Of course, some people like figuring out how something works, however for the major population, being unable to operate an interface causes wasted time and frustration, and that's not a good thing.
If you are able to take a complex piece of hardware or a software application and by some means [rearrange, reorganize and redesign] the GUI to make it easy to use and understand, then you're right on the path to providing a better user experience.
One of the techniques you can incorporate in your interface design is Context based controls.
There are several of attitudes you can take towards GUI design that relate to context and consistency. One suggests that you have to keep controls consistent throughout your software or websites to be sure that people know where things are and don't get lost. The second approach is to adjust key elements or navigation depending on the context of each page or window. The content based option is when you show only the items the user needs to finish the process they're working in that particular context.
A good example of the two attitudes can be seen in the revision of the Microsoft Office GUI. Office 2003, along with its older siblings, followed the design principle of keeping things consistent. There was a bunch of buttons displayed in the window at all times, and the controls remained unchanged no matter if you were working with columns, graphics, text or images. Microsoft redesigned this interface for Office 2007 applying a context related approach. At the top you now see a toolbar - or a set of tabs. When selected, each tab shows a set of controls relevant to any given task, be it spell checking, working with graphics, or simply writing.
The context related approach enables you to show fewer interface elements at any given time, but it also gives you more controls that are relevant to the current task. I wouldn't advice using a context-heavy approach for general web interface design because for most websites users expect to see unchanging site-wide navigation. This is because every website is different, and it would make the browsing experience much harder if all the individual pages on a particular site were different too.
Having said this, this can be utilized for web applications because they're not just simple websites - they're pieces of software that live in the cloud. People are likely to spend a lot of time on a web app and will have more opportunity to learn how it works. The complexity of some web apps means that you really need to utilize the context based approach, because if you don't, there will be too much on the screen at any given time for anyone to process. By showing only a few relevant controls for a given task, your users can figure out what to do in much less time.
 Standard Toolbar Icons
Science Toolbar Icons
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