Web Usability Usability II

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Web Usability(Usability II)
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Web Usability

• Before you design or implement a web site for
  anybody, read Designing Web Usability by Jakob
  Nielsen.
• The overall message is two-fold
• Keep it simple,
• Focus on what your visitors want to do, not what
  your corporation wants to reflect.

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Golden Rules for the Web

• Keep download times small
• Remember the 1/10, 1, 10 Rule
• Assume users are on a 56K modem
• Implies specify the size and probable download
  time for anything over 50K
• Do anything to maximise the screen real-estate of
  user content.

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More Golden Rules

• Assume the use of 2-year-old browsers (with only
  common default plugins).
• Provide links which look like links
• Differentiate headline links from inline links,
• Make sure you give the users some information to
  allow them to decide whether to follow the link,
• Stick to traditional link colours.

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The golden link rule

• Most often violated
• Never say
• Click here to see such and such.
• Rather say
• We have more information about such and such.

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The golden link rule (2)
Its pretty good, newand free from internet
news today
Operas new browser Internet news todays John
Smith looks at the small, fast, free competitor
to Internet Explorer, and explains why you should
get it.
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Content and Style

• Keep writing 50 shorter than print.
• Write to allow scanning.
• Dont be cute (unless youre really really good).
• Provide printable as well as online versions of
  longer content.
• Link to content, dont link to lists.

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HOMERUN Principles

• High-quality content.
• Often updated.
• Minimal download time.
• Ease of use.
• Relevant to users needs.
• Unique to on-line medium.
• Net-centric corporate culture.

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Arts and Letters Daily

• www.aldaily.com created by Dennis Dutton in
  1998.
• Sold in 1999 to University Business (who
  published Lingua Franca).
• Won 2002 Webby for Best News Site.
• University Business went under in 2002.
• Aldaily bought after a short hiatus by The
  Chronicle of Higher Education.

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Why does it work?

• Meets each of Nielsens HOMERUN principles.
• Encourages straightforward expectations.
• Takes care around the Golden Rules.
• cf slashdot, blogs.

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www.otago.ac.nz

• At first glance, very pretty follows corporate
  guidelines.
• Asserts that what users want most is campus news
  (assumption of intranet purpose).
• Cannot provide sub-categories for departments and
  schools.
• Splits data for prospective students into 3
  trails.
• Makes crucial data for lecturers impossible to
  find.

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Elements of User Experience

• Five elements of a website
• Strategy (yours and the users),
• Scope (what will be provided),
• Structure (how the content will relate),
• Skeleton (how the user will navigate the
  structure),
• Surface (what the user will see).
• Continuum from abstract to concrete.

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Choices and Ripples

• Choices made at lower levels constrain actions at
  upper levels.
• Known constraints at upper levels restrict choice
  at lower levels.
• Requiring work to finish at lower levels before
  work on upper levels begins is a disaster.

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Dual Nature of the Web

• Characteristics of each element become more
  sharply defined when we split software interface
  considerations from hypertext system
  considerations.
• The designer of the website needs to be involved
  at each and every stage.
• Sites can fail at any stage.

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Next Lecture
User Testing and User Interfaces