Usability News October-December 2001 | |
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Usability News Archive
Happy new year
This new year will be more relaxing for most IT professionals (at least from a technical viewpoint) compared to last year since there will be no such thing as Y2K, millenium bugs, and year 2000 problems.The most important thing websites should do when entering a new year is to change the year on copyright statements and the like. Tip: Search your site for "2001 copyright" using site search or similar.
Segway analysis
Dan Bricklin has a well-written analysis of the Segway which he correctly identifies as a disruptive technology in the market for scooters and other "people movers". Of course the Segway competes with scooters. But it also competes with a range of other transportation technologies such as public transportation, bicycles, and rollerblades.Rollerblades are probably too dangerous to use for many people and the wheels are very impractical when you go shopping. Bicycle riders live a dangerous life between the cars in many major cities. And public transportation does not always take you to the place you need to go. So, many of the existing personal mobility devices are too hard or dangerous to use for daily transportation in the city. As a result, people go by car which creates traffic problems in the city.
The Segway may improve things since it appears more safe as you could be driving on the sidewalk and is better protected from the traffic. At least one big question remains: Will cities allow Segways in pedestrian areas? It ultimately depends on how it will affect other pedestrians.
Print catalogs in ecommerce
Google is making 600+ print catalogs (beta version) available as JPEG-files (via IAslash). Every catalog page. Every month. Every year. What a job! They copy each catalog page, convert the pages into JPEG-files, and upload the catalog pages to their servers. This offering is quite unique since catalogs become accessible worldwide and in a searchable format.It is also interesting to notice that Google (a search engine) chooses to distribute content as opposed to spotting others' content. Highly focused and consistent content probably creates higher traffic on google.com than diverse and incoherent search results. In any case, ecommerce is nothing but mail order using an electronic catalog.
ISO guidelines for webdesign
International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) offers a range of webdesign guidelines. The most important ISO standard for design would probably be ISO 9241 (part 1 of 17) titled "Ergonomics requirements for office work with visual display terminals (VDTs)". ISO 9241 includes guidelines for form filling dialogues, menu dialogues, and user guidance.However, I don't have full confidence in ISO's ability to create useful guidelines for webdesign for several reasons:
Pro Microsoft links
Links to sites who have the courage and ability to defend Microsoft against mediocrity, open source-hippies, and runaway government.Personal mobility
Inventor Dean Kamen is making life easier for pedestrians. He has invented Segway, a two-wheeled battery-driven device for personal transportation. It runs up to 20 km/h (12.5 mph), and has a 28 km (17 miles) range. No brakes, no steering wheel, not even an engine. To go forward, lean forward.The Segway works anywhere a person can walk (streaming video), including warehouses and postal delivery. Read also press coverage in Time, CNN, USA Today, and NY Times (registration req'd).
P.S. I think the Segway still has one problem: It has wheels and is not yet capable of flying... ;-)
User requirements gathering
Tom Farrell: To be usable, an interface must let the people who use the product (users), working in their own physical, social, and cultural environments, accomplish their goals and tasks effectively and efficiently.Multimedia messaging on the mobile Internet
Nokia has launched an interesting multimedia mobile phone that allow users to take pictures, record audio, and distribute the whole thing to other multimedia-enabled users on the mobile Internet. Or to any email recipient (requires subscription). The phone has a built-in camera and is also capable of showing pictures on its full-color screen.Multimedia content is exchanged through a protocol called multimedia messaging service. MMS is an open industry standard that allows exchange of pictures, voice, and other multimedia content.
The technology is likely to develop through network games and other entertainment services. But it also has its rights in professional applications such as technical services where personnel can troubleshoot problems with technical experts home at the office. In effect, service companies can save the time of their expensive experts.
MMS looks pretty much like WAP. Only better.
Product pictures clarify user worries
How much is a quality picture worth on a product page? A lot. Product pictures help music buyers determine if the music-CD in their browser window is worth buying by clarifying a range of worries about the offering, including:Other types of content also help users answer the questions and understand exactly what is offered (and what is not). So, product pictures are not always stricly necessary on a site with a limited budget. In some cases, pictures of other product versions can even be used to give an idea about the product (it should always be clearly stated if the picture doesn't match the product to maintain user credibility). Still, good product pictures usually provide more exact information about the product compared to other content.
Donation survey
I recently added a support this site page to enable donations for my website. How much should I ask my readers (you) to donate? (via PayPal.com)EU may restrict use of cookies
I don't believe this. The European Parliament is taking legislative steps to restrict the use of cookies. The initiative will force websites to explicitly ask users if they want to accept cookies.The eurocrats are reaching new heights of incompetence with this initiative. Not only are cookies useful when browsing various personal accounts. Restricted use of cookies will also make user registration more frequent and complicated on the Web. For instance, users would need to go through an additional step to access this leftist party homepage. In turn, users will suffer from annoying interruptions and harder to use websites. Any free society would leave such an issue to companies and consumers. The EU don't.
Bottom-line: There are priorities in life. Political economy is not one of them.
Personalized Intranet
US Army's Army Knowledge Online Portal is probably the world's largest Intranet. It aggregates all manuals, documents, and files from the US Army and is used by one million users from around the World. Each user accesses the Intranet portal through a personalized page based on what the user prefers and needs to know.Personalization is usually a bad idea on the Web because users don't have the time and incentive to exploit all the features. But personalization is a good idea on large corporate portals because users learn to use it through hours of daily use and experience clear benefits as they become faster and better at getting work done (assuming the Intranet is usable).
Learn more: Good demo of personalized Intranet (click "streaming demo" in the local navigation bar).
Collective intelligence
There is no such thing as collective intelligence on the web or elsewhere. Only the contribution of individuals working on their own and in groups (e.g., companies). As each person makes more contributions, the overall amount of content on the web grows to ever larger levels.Database-driven technology is exploiting web content in ways that make it more useful. For instance, epinions.com collect impartial product reviews by ordinary people and adds value to this content by summarizing and digesting opinions. eBay's half.com accumulates new and used products at discounted prices and make them available to buyers so that the buying process is made easy (large selection, quality product descriptions, pre-ordering tools, seller ratings, etc.).
In both cases, content is created by many users, made available to many users, and enabled by services that enhance the value of the individual contributions. But this is not collective intelligence. It's the sum of thousands of individual contributions. Pure N-to-N interaction.
Bill Gates: PCs don't work very well
PCs don't work very well. Future computers will fade into the background and let users focus on their tasks.Prototype creation
Carolyn Snyder explains how usability professionals can use paper prototypes to do their work faster, better, more independently, and with lower risk. For instance, paper prototypes reduce the need for programmers and servers, user testing can be conducted using the paper version, and design changes are easily made with a pen.Probably the worst mistakes I have observed in paper prototyping is when prototype designers limit their mockup to the visible space on the paper at hand while forgetting that web pages can contain much more content than paper. Paper is simply missing a scroll down function.
Boo Hoo
Boo.com founders Ernst Malmsten and Kajsa Leander use 224 pages in their new book Boo Hoo to explain how they wasted $130m of investors' money in just 18 months on their business startup ($580,000 per page). See also my critique of Boo.com.Pop-ups decrease homepage usability
A few months ago, I criticized healthcare leader Novo Nordisk for using messy pop-up windows on one of their homepages. Today the homepage has been fixed by moving the pop-up content to the homepage.Unfortunately, their main corporate site still uses a pop-up window for language selection. A better solution would integrate the pop-up content into the homepage to make interaction with the site more smooth.
Homepage usability: 50 websites deconstructed
Jakob Nielsen's new book Homepage Usability : 50 Websites Deconstructed (co-authored with Marie Tahir) is already a bestseller before it is published. The book is currently #42 on the Amazon.com 100. I love to see how Dr. Nielsen's ideas remain a top priority in the Internet world.Hidden content
Don't use "fly outs, rollovers, dropdowns", and other design elements that hide page content. The reason: Users do not see the content until they have decided where to click.Hidden navigation features can be useful shortcuts to expert users. But then again, users spend most of their time on other sites than your own and are not likely to learn how stuff should be done on a particular site.
Daily quality links
Don Makoviney's Makovision offers daily news links for web developers and usability professionals. The links are strictly to the point and come with good comments -- qualities rarely found on the Web these days.Unfortunately the links die once they are more than five days old (at least in "date" format). You can subscribe to Makoviney's bi-weekly(!) newsletter to build up your personal Makovision archive. I think it's worth it.
A.I.
Are humans more intelligent than robots? Not always. This LEGO Mindstorms robot is able to solve a 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube.Definition of usability
My definition of usability: "Users can complete their tasks." In particular, users and their major needs are known at detailed level; users can complete their tasks without delay or errors; and users enjoy the experience.Google navbars
Google is adding navbars to their four current homepages. The goal is to make Google's main functionalities visible and available in a simplistic design. Screenshots of all four Google homepages. The navbar would improve if the section order and wording was changed slightly:Airport experience
Making airline users stand in line for hours is not the way to prevent future suicide terrorist attacks. Cockpits must secured by steel doors and a hijacker kill zone and more security personnel could be added. The goal is zero increased time for security checks. Or, users may simply stay home.
