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Jun
09
2009

Book Review – Don't Make Me Think, 2nd Edition

By | Book Reviews, Usability

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dontmakemethinkcoverMost of us who are practitioners of website usability know that a good deal of good design, and good usability, is just applying some common sense.  Steve Krug’s book, Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link), now in its 2nd edition, brings good web usability to the masses in a short format that can be read during a plane trip (which was one of Steve’s goals).  Steve starts with the basics of web usability, what he terms “guiding principles”, and explains them in a way that will make sense even to CEOs.  Once you understand these “guiding principles”, Steve uses them to illustrate general design principles that every website needs to get right.  Each of the twelve chapters uses examples and big pictures (for the CEOS) to illustrate usability concepts, why they work and why they’re important.

Website usability is more important than ever with a large portion of business research conducted online.  With the rise in popularity of smartphones and other mobile devices, having good usability on multiple platforms will be extremely important.  The principles and examples used in Krug’s book will help any business understand the basics of getting their website into shape so that they can reach a much larger audience (and stop annoying their current customers).

Even web designers and usability “experts” will find something useful in Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link), even if it’s just a great quote for a blog post on usability.  I found some good quotes that you may see in future posts, but I also found some great new ways to illustrate usability principles that will help get the why across to businesspeople (which can be difficult, as we all are aware).  Don’t Make Me Think (Amazon affiliate link) was a quick and enjoyable read, even for someone very familiar (and passionate about) with web usability.  I recommend giving it a read, no matter what your business role.

If you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition (Amazon affiliate link)

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May
07
2009

On a Crusade Against Drop-Down Menus

By | Design, News & Notes, Usability

8 Comments

crusadepuroticoricoAnyone who worked with me at the publishing company will know that I am completely (almost) against using drop-down menus on websites.  Why?  Well there are lot’s of reasons…

They’re cool

I hate using anything because it’s cool.  If you have a business reason for using something, that’s one thing, but using something because it’s cool, just isn’t.  Most things that are used for this reason are annoying and quickly become yesterday’s fad.  Besides, you’re running a business, not trying to join a high school clique.

They don’t work well

While this problem has improved, many sites still don’t implement drop down menus very well.  They’re hard to use and clicking on just the right link is very difficult.

They don’t show up on mobile devices

This has been improved as well.  But even if they do work on mobile devices, they’re even more difficult to use than when you have a mouse.

What about people without a mouse

There are people out there using computers without mice – text readers and other devices for people with disabilities, and other devices.  Some drop-down menus will have accessibility for people with keyboards or other devices, but often this is forgotten.

They’re a crutch

In order to properly (if there is such a thing) use drop down menus, information needs to be organized in a way that makes sense.  There needs to be some sort of hierarchy.  Most sites that use drop down menus don’t have a true information hierarchy, they just use cute titles that only make sense to the designer or marketing guy.  And there’s almost always a bunch of pages that don’t fit anywhere and are thrown under a Misc. heading – not very helpful.

It’s hard to find things

People are much faster at scanning a page than mousing over menu items to see what’s in them.  While your drop downs may seem like they’re saving time, they really are causing seconds of time for every use – that really adds up.

They’re annoying

I don’t know how many times I’ll go to a site with drop down menus and my mouse will happen to be over one of them.  All of a sudden a menu pops up when all I’m trying to do is read an article.  Now I have to take the time to move my mouse so I can do what I came to the site to do.  Or, I’ll be trying to navigate through a site but I can’t seem to get my mouse in the right place to keep the menu open long enough to click on the text – it can be pretty trying to click on a small word just to go to another page.

They’re a fad

For the most part, large sites have started to go away from drop-down menus (yay!).  They’ve found that people can scan through a long list of links much faster than they can hunt through different drop-down menus.  Having all the major links on a page means that it’ll be easier for people to find other reasons to stay on your site, instead of leaving or clicking off.

(photo by puroticorico)

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May
05
2009

Splash Pages – Thumbs Up or Down?

By | Design, Marketing, Usability

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splashsergiotudelaNow, I have to agree with Todd Zeigler over at The Bivings Group – normally I hate splash pages, especially as a user.  But as Todd said, they seem to be extremely useful for collecting information (usually emails).  It seems that sometimes you have to be a bit obnoxious for people to actually give you their information.

However, I want to insist that splash pages need to be used for one purpose – and one purpose only – collecting information from site visitors – getting them to sign up for your service, newsletter, whatever.  They should NOT be used for a pretty flash movie or some other annoyance that serves no real purpose other than to annoy everyone.  I don’t care if you spent a lot of money on that supposedly cool introduction.  If you’re not using it for a real purpose, don’t do it.  If you’re going to annoy your visitors, at least do it for an actual purpose – collecting information for a specific reason.

I also have to agree with Todd regarding the implementation of a splash page:

If you are going to deploy a splash page, please, please, please set it up so that a user only sees the page periodically. We usually set it up so that users who do not sign up see the page every two weeks or so. Also, make sure to set it up so that if users have already signed up for your email list they never see the splash page again. These steps will minimize the disruption to users who visit your site frequently.

(photo by sergio tudela)

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Apr
29
2009

Why I Hate Keyword Clouds

By | Content, Design, News & Notes, Opinion, Usability

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cloudskevindooleyEver see a set of words in different sizes which are all links on a site?  It’s probably a keyword cloud.  These clouds try to give a visual representation of what the site is about.  Sometimes they’re based on tags, which the writer of the content uses to categorize their content (these are .  Often they are based only on the words the site – the keywords – the words that are mentioned the most often are represented by the largest size.  The problem is these keyword clouds often falsely represent the true content of a site.  Keywords are not intelligent.  They don’t know that a story about – they don’t know about context or associations.  Keywords are dumb.

For example, we try to cover social media, marketing, strategy and technology links through our Twitter feed.  Many of these tweets do not use any of those keywords, but they do cover that subject area.  If you were to just look at the words we tweet, you’d come up with a keyword cloud that looks similar to this:

twittercloud
From this keyword cloud, it looks like all our feed is about is thanking people, being happy and retweeting. Secondarily, about marketing, social media and the web.  While our tweets certainly to include those words, it’s not the entirety of what we’re about.  It doesn’t show context or association.

These types of keyword clouds also encourage people to game the system by always including certain words in their tweets and websites (what people often think of as keywords).  This makes conversations dull, repetitive and largely useless.  When you start writing and tweeting for search engines or computers, you’re missing the conversations you need to be having with customers and people.

(photo by kevindooley)

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Apr
23
2009

Cheap Usability Testing – Gather Some Friends

By | Design

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eyeslookintomyeyesYesterday’s post over at ProBlogger – Watch a First Reader Use Your Blog – got me thinking more about business website usability.  Many times sites are poorly designed because those who design and own the sites never have to actually use them.  Testing them to make sure functions work isn’t the same.  When you’re familiar with a site, you have a certain way of doing things and you know what to expect.  But a first time user has no preconceived notions about how the site “should” work.

Still, truly professional website usability testing can be prohibitively expensive for many business owners.  But hopefully you all have a few friends who haven’t really used or seen your site.  Sit down with them and watch them try to use it – just make sure you watch and listen, don’t give them any pre-instructions or help.  Once your friend is done, ask them their thoughts and what they thought could be improved.  Watching someone else try to use your site can give you some very useful feedback on what needs improvement.  While a friend will (hopefully) be more forgiving than a customer, any feedback is good and most customers won’t bother telling you when something doesn’t work – they’ll just go somewhere else.

(photo by Look Into My Eyes)

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Apr
22
2009

Want People To Fill Out Your Forms? Stop Annoying Them

By | Design, News & Notes

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flowerskaatjevervoort1

How many more leads and sales could you be generating from your website if your forms were designed properly? When forms annoy people, or things aren’t where they expect them or don’t work properly, they’ll just leave.  I don’t know about you, but I end up filling out quite a few forms on websites – when I’m researching products, looking for information for clients, signing up for services, and purchasing products or services.  It annoys me to no end when web forms aren’t designed properly, especially since it’s not that difficult.  Good usability and design principles for web forms have really been around for longer than the Internet, even if they’ve been updated somewhat.

Here are some ways to improve the forms on your website:

  • Next or Submit buttons on the right – think about turning a page in a book.
  • Clear or Cancel buttons on the left.
  • Fields with enough space – Make sure people can give you all the information you need and see it without having to scroll the field.
  • Be flexible – If you want a phone number, let people enter it however they want.  Use background processing to format it the way you want for your database or CRM.  For example, 2485556758 can easily be turned into 248-555-6758 or 248.555.6758 or however you want to see it.
  • Be clear – If you absolutely need something in a certain format, make sure it’s clear and obvious right next to the field.  The same goes for any maximum field lengths.
  • Keep it simple – Only collect the minimum amount of information you need.  While it’s nice to collect information for statistics and marketing purposes, you risk not gathering any information.
  • Required fields clearly marked – Need particular fields filled out no matter what?  Fine, just make sure it’s obvious which fields those are.  Making them a different color will help them stand out.
  • Quick feedback – If a field was missed or wasn’t filled out properly, try to let people know before they click the submit or next button.  This is pretty easy to do with javascript.
  • Clear feedback – However you give feedback, make sure its obvious what field you’re specifically talking about and what needs to be fixed.  Putting messages at the top of the page and marking the field in question are best.
  • Do the heavy lifting – Need information in more than one place?  Pre-fill it in if the person has already typed it once.  Need some calculations made?  Do them with backend processing and present them to the person to be confirmed.
  • Allow people to edit – People make mistakes.  Let them go back to change what they’ve entered.  This means your forms need to be able to handle the back button on the browser and still have all the information that was already entered available.
  • Test in multiple browsers – It may be hard to believe, but not everyone has a PC running Windows with Internet Explorer.  Make sure your form works for the major platforms, operating systems and web browsers.  If you accept file uploads, make sure they work across platforms.  Soon you’ll also need to worry about mobile platforms.
  • Confirmation – Let people know you’ve properly received their information.  On your website is best.  Following up with an email if they’ve provided an address is also nice.
  • Thank them! – People are busy.  Thank them for the information they’ve provided or the purchase they’ve made.

What did I miss?

One of the easiest ways to design forms properly is to try to use them yourself.  Then ask a few friends to try them and give you feedback.

(photo by kaatjevervoort)

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Apr
03
2009

16 Quick & Easy Ways to Increase Usability On Your Business Website

By | Design, News & Notes, Usability

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usabilitysantaroseoldskoolUsability is the science of making things easier to use.  Usability is especially important to websites since visitors can easily and quickly go somewhere else.  Try these tips to make your website easier to use and help your visitors find what they’re looking for.

  1. Search in the upper right – Especially for large sites, make it as easy as possible for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
  2. Consistent menus – generally on the left or top of the site. Visitors should be able to navigate wherever they want and get a feel for the site structure.
  3. Include a home link – Visitors may want to get back to the homepage easily.
  4. Contact page – with a business phone, address and email.  It increases your reputation and makes it easy for potential customers to get in contact with you.
  5. Sized to fit – Fit into the minimum standards screen resolution of 1028×768 without scrolling horizontally.
  6. Easy to read – Use text colors with good contrast, size and easy to read fonts.
  7. One layout – If your site has a consistent layout throughout, it will make it easier for visitors to navigate and find information.
  8. Pleasing to the eye – Color scheme is important to your professional image and makes it easier to visitors to understand what you do, as well as navigate your site.
  9. Use white space – Don’t bunch things up.  People need white space in order to scan and read your site.
  10. Speak normally – Overly technical text or too much hype makes reading difficult.
  11. Use bullet points and lists – when feasible to make it easy for visitors to scan your content.
  12. Move forward to the right – Submit, next, go, etc. buttons should always be on the right, cancel buttons on the left.
  13. Use Flash, rich media, video, audio, etc. sparingly – If you have a video page, great, but your whole site shouldn’t be in rich media or people without the plugins, on mobile devices, or using text browsers will not be able to see your content.  Audio, Video, Flash and rich media should preferrably not play without the visitor clicking a button.
  14. Restrain movement – Animation, flashing and movement make it difficult for people to read and scan your website.  Use for relevant informational purposes, not just as a gimmick or ad.
  15. Limit advertising – We all understand that advertising has a place and a purpose.  If you choose to include advertising, keep it relevant, limit it to specific spots on your site, limit then number of ads and mark them clearly as advertising.
  16. Include a Sitemap – Sometimes it’s just easier to see a list of all the pages on a website.  This helps search engines find all your content as well.

Do you have other tips to increase usability?  We’d love to hear them in the comments…

(photo by SantaRosa OLD SKOOL @ Flickr CC)

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Mar
26
2009

What Type of Experiences Are You Providing For Your Customers?

By | Design, Marketing, News & Notes

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friendshipbbjeeTraditional marketing focuses on product features and benefits. But your customers are more interested in the experiences they can have with your products.  Usually when a customer decides to purchase a product it’s not because of the features it offers, it’s because of what they can do with the product. For example, we purchased a flat screen HDTV not because of the number of pixels or brightness or refresh rate, but because it looks awesome when you’re watching a movie or sporting event.  The experience we’re interested in is how the picture looks when we’re watching TV… the features of the TV just help fulfill that particular experience.

What about online?  It can sometimes be difficult to figure out what types of experiences customers are looking for on your website.  It helps to think in terms of tasks instead of products or features or benefits.  What are your customers trying to accomplish when they come to your website?  There probably are many different types of tasks – browsing, searching, contacting, support, purchasing, etc.  The trick is to try to make all these tasks as easy as possible on your one website.

Now, instead of thinking of these actions as tasks, think of them as a chance to interact with your customer.  What would you do if you were in-person?  What types of interactions would you want with a company?  Think of each of these interactions as an opportunity to build a relationship with your customer – or add to a relationship.  Try to think of website visitors as individual people with their own stories and emotions and opinions.

Now, how would you design your website differently to interact with your customers and build relationships? What do your customers say about your website? They may have some great insight – if you just ask.

(photo by bbjee @ FlickrCC)

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Mar
17
2009

Good Website Usability Means Not Making Your Visitors Think

By | Design, News & Notes, Usability

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usabilitytashmahal1Good websites are designed to be both easy to use and attractive.  When visitors come to a website they don’t want to have to think about how to accomplish whatever it is they came for.  They shouldn’t have to search for links or content or the right button to click.

Well designed products have buttons in the right places and use pictures, symbols and actions that people intuitively feel comfortable with.  The same is true of websites.  People expect search boxes to be in a certain place (usually upper left) and Submit or Next buttons to be on the right (it helps to think of advancing web pages like turning pages in a book).

Good website usability doesn’t necessarily have to be difficult.  Take a look at your website.  Does everything feel like it’s in the “right” place?  If you’re not sure, ask some customers and colleagues to try to accomplish some specific goals.  For example, if you have an eCommerce site, ask someone to purchase a product for a specific purpose – like a gift for their kid’s birthday.  How easy is it for them to find an item that fits that purpose?  How appealing was the product on the page?  Were they able to find the information they needed to make an informed purchase?  Were they able to actually make the purchase? Get their feedback on whether anything seemed difficult or out of place (usability is the practice of methodically testing how users interact with something and then using that information to arrange items to make it easier to use).

Having a well designed website is important because it will affect how many sales and leads you are able to generate from it.  If customers can’t find what they need from your site, they are likely just to go somewhere else instead.

(photo by tashmahal @ Flickr CC)

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Oct
23
2008

Creating Leads with Customer-Centric Design

By | Design, Marketing, News & Notes, Usability

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butterflyjustchaosNow that we’ve had an overview of what customer-centric design is, let’s discuss how it can be used to create leads.

Providing Valuable Information

Having a reason for customers to visit your site is the first step in creating leads. The most important aspect of customer-centric design is providing your customers with exactly what they are looking for.  Think about everything they might come to your website to look for and make sure the information is easy to find.  It should also be easy for customers to contact you with questions or concerns.

A Place to Connect

By providing a place for your customers to connect with each other and with you, you can help your customers get the information and support they need.  More importantly, you’ll be able to get information about who needs help and where they are in the buying process.

Enticement

Do your customers have a reason to give you their contact information?  Is there some useful information or service you can provide for free in exchange for contact information?  Enticement to create leads can be very effective for you and provide a useful service for your customers.  Remember to keep information gathering to a minimum. (name and email work best).

How do you use customer-centric design to create leads?

(photo by Just chaos @ Flickr CC)

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