It is easy for clients, I have noticed, to mistakenly conflate adding widgets, effects and acronyms — Sliders, Sorters, Expanding-Menus, Oh My! — with implementing an idea. The client talks excitedly, rattling off a Rube Goldberg chain of widget-to-widget interactions, their voices rising, the importance of each and every widget in the chain perceived critical to the achievement of the Internet Holy Grail: Angel Investment. Or at least, a really slick site.

Don’t get me wrong. I think everyone is in favor of a well-placed widget.

They can be so smooth and beautiful that you gasp. They can glow yellow for just the correct duration before fading to white (”where has that beautiful apparition gone?”, you wonder, before drunkenly clicking again. And again. And again.). They can add an item to a list almost magically: never was it so fun to have so many things To Do. They can save you clicks, keep you in one place, slide items into carts with almost illicit ease.

In short, they can make things so simple that a tear comes to your eye, and you rush off, hat in hand, in the quest of The Holy Spinner to deliver your payload.

But stop.

What are you looking for? Forget the elevator pitch, as it can be intoxicating: the sound of your voice, people nodding enthusiastically, the doors shut blocking their escape (especially if you are stuck between floors). Instead, do the quiet room test. You alone. Your idea. Naked. A convergence of souls.

“What do you need, Idea”, you ask, “in order to fully manifest your glorious Idea-ness?”

If your idea is quiet, do not rush to speak for it. If your idea speaks but is simple, do not scoff. Do not dress your idea up in Widget Drag, so it looks like a teenager searching for their identity at the Web 2.0 Store. If your idea does not need a Yellow Fade or slider, that is OK. If you remove the slider and yellow fade and find there is no idea underneath, that’s OK, too. Go for a walk. Another idea will come.

Think about building a UI like listening to the ones that you love. You observe them. You listen to their likes and dislikes so your gifts will please them, not reflect your tastes. It’s not about the shiny present: it’s about the connection, the need anticipated and met, a little bit of the edge taken off. Brush cleared, the path made simpler.

If you’re tempted to drive up to your date in the red corvette of ideas — or wow your user with the accordian navigation ’cause it like, opens and closes! — remember that you might be saying more about yourself than anything else.

And then ask yourself: Do you need that rainbow-colored slider on your site?