UsabilityNews: News (full)

Why 'The 10 Commandments of Web Design' are Complete Baloney

Joanna Bawa — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

By Matthew Magain

I read this morning in the SitePoint Industry News forum that BusinessWeek had compiled what is being referred to as The 10 Commandments of Web Design.

The experts who contributed to this list include widely read authors and speakers like Dan Cederholm, Dave Shea, Khoi Vinh and Jeffrey Zeldman. On the surface, their advice seems reasonably innocuous. However, dig deeper and you’ll see that it all falls apart. Allow me to explain …

Before I launch into why I think this list is baloney, allow me a couple of minutes to don my flame suit. It’s a little dusty since I used it last. Oh, and don’t forget to grab a pinch of salt from the kitchen on your way through — you might need it.

OK, here we go. Deep breath… I’m going in.

Local Council Websites: Good, but no Cigar

Joanna Bawa — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The 'Local Council Websites: Good, But No Cigar' report evaluates the top 20 Socitm council websites against 20 best practice usability guidelines.

Based on our collective experience of usability testing conducted on council websites, we devised 20 essential guidelines that all local councils should adhere to, evaluating each site against these guidelines.

Download the report via the link below.

Why does the OK Button say OK?

Joanna Bawa — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

By Gerry McGovern

Words are critical to task completion on websites and in applications. Yet they are still chosen carelessly. "Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button?" Jakob Nielsen asked in his excellent Alertbox in May 2008. I have two questions here: Why do we need a Cancel button in most situations? Why is the OK button called OK?

Some time ago, I was entering a number into a web form. Let's say I entered "120,000". When I clicked Next the following message came back:

Sorry! That does not appear to be a valid number. Please try again OK

The OK button stared out at me, and I thought: 'This is not OK. You've told me that I've entered an invalid number. Well, it looks pretty valid to me, and even if it is invalid, as you say, you haven't told me why. You haven't told me how I can correct the error of my ways.'

Most times I come across the OK button, something not-OK has happened. It's like my cat coming into our kitchen and saying. "Hello Gerry. Just wanted to let you know I did a pee in the sitting room. OK." Well, sorry, it's not OK. Who decided to call this not-OK button OK? What sort of logic was at work inside their mind? I belong to a group of people that really cares about words. I think they're precious and incredibly powerful things. I think that web behavior is driven by words. Get your words exactly right and you will be much more successful on the Web.

I know that there are lots of people out there that think words are trivial things. These are the people who choose OK when it is patently not-OK. The OK button may be a bad choice of word, but the Cancel button is probably not even necessary in most situations. Cancel has a first cousin called Clear. I've filled out a lot of forms over the years but only once did I need to use the Clear button.

A strange thing had happened to me on that occasion. I looked at a form I had just filled out and gasped: "John O'Neill is not my name! And that's not my address! And that's definitely not my age!! I'm much younger than that!" So I used the Clear button and started again. Did you ever wonder why there is often a row of buttons on the sleeves of men's jackets, or why there is often a slit at the back? The slit is there for horse riding. The buttons are there because it was a custom some centuries ago to roll up and button the sleeves. I notice that many web forms I now come across don't have Clear. This button might have had a purpose back in the days of mainframes, but today it probably hinders more than it helps.

Words matter. Simplicity matters. Choosing the right word for your customer is no easy task but it can deliver tremendous value. Stripping away all extra words and buttons is the path to simplicity. It requires a deep understanding of the fundamental nature of the customer's task.

The 10 Commandments of Web Design

Joanna Bawa — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Since the Internet emerged as a major force, altering everything from the way people work to the way they date, it has been a roller-coaster ride that made the world giddy. Microsoft (MSFT), Netscape, et al. fought the browser wars, Web standards were championed, and the Web became community-minded and social, ushering in the reign of Facebook, Flickr (YHOO), and YouTube. From boom to bust and back again, with staggering amounts of money changing hands at every point, the online industry rides on with no end in sight.

The Net has also attracted prophets, gurus, theorists, and evangelists of every stripe. Many of their promised game-changing technologies—Jini, DHTML, and countless others—never panned out, while seemingly simple innovations—metadata, XML, and CSS—have led to major breakthroughs. Meanwhile, Web design vogues from the effervescent jumble of HotWired to the stark utility of Google (GOOG) have continued to evolve and become more contradictory—and entrenched.

To try and make sense of it all, BusinessWeek.com canvassed a broad range of Internet luminaries to discover the design rules they live by right now. Contributors ranged from the guru of Web usability, Don Norman, co-founder of the Nielsen Norman Group, to the design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, and John Maeda, president-elect of the Rhode Island School of Design. These 10 commandments of Web design for 2008 are the combined results of our survey.

For the full 10 commandments, follow the link below:

Bill Gates' email rant at the Usability Team

Joanna Bawa — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Seattle P-I has tracked down an old e-mail from 2003 that Bill Gates sent out to members of the Windows Usability team. The pages-long e-mail message chronicles Gates’ attempt to download Windows Movie Maker. Here are some especially tantalizing tidbits, with the full e-mail message to be found after the jump.

“I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing.

So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?

So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated…

…I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download.

In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations.

This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?…

…Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time?

So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state…”

Click through for the entire email.

Can a better User Experience also be a Greener Experience?

Tony DeYoung — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Since 2002 Catalyst Resources has evolved and enhanced its secure online collaboration, project management and document sharing solution for use by remote employees and select clients. Recently, Catalyst began to track how this collaboration tool impacted the company's greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need for air travel and local commuting.

"When we ran the analysis, we were pleased with by the significant reduction in our own carbon footprint." said Paul Giurata, Managing Partner of Catalyst Resources. "The question then became - how we could broaden the green impact, by expanding the solution from an internal resource, into a customizable team space to be used by our entire client base?"

While a "green strategy" to reduce carbon emissions is becoming a must for businesses in both the public and private sectors, changing individual behavior is challenging. Catalyst recognized that to get clients to adopt the web collaboration solution, it would need to provide a better user experience and enhanced productivity, compared to the traditional process of email, face-to-face meetings and hard copy documents. The implementation would also need to be scalable so that additional clients could be added to the system without additional support staff.

Catalyst redesigned its collaboration solution into a ‘software-as-a-service’ (SaaS) platform with a rich internet application (RIA) interface. It now scales to any size and handles business needs both internally and beyond the firewall. Workspaces can be configured by each client to incorporate their own branding, as well as specific industry-related terms and language. The RIA interface minimizes the training requirements, provides fast performance, and is intuitive to use.

After implementing the new SaaS RIA web collaboration solution internally, Catalyst was able to reduce business travel and commuting across seven clients to achieve an average CO2 reduction of 21,000+ lbs per month (roughly the amount produced by 3 US households in one year).

"The Catalyst web collaboration solution is a great example of using RIAs and SaaS to solve a common business problem " said Giurata. "As governments move to cap carbon-based emissions, businesses will need to track their emissions and adopt environmentally friendly business practices. As demonstrated by the Catalyst Resources green audit, a SaaS web collaboration solution can meet these requirements and save costs at the same time."

The Spread of Telepresence Technology

Joanna Bawa — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Besides the increasing financial expense of air travel and its human wear-and-tear, businesses' concerns about its environmental costs are also driving faster and wider adoption of videoconferencing, according to executives at Eyenetwork, a UK-based pioneer in Europe's videoconferencing market. "Obviously, many business trips are unavoidable but the trends we see are clear, and decision makers are more critical of travel in an era of rising costs and social environmental responsibility," said company director Lisa Honan.

To that can be added the longer-standing trend toward globalization and the requirements of managing dispersed workforces and supply chains, commented Akiba Saeedi, IBM Lotus' program director for unified communications and collaboration. "Some of the things have been happening for a while - globalization, cutting travel costs, green initiatives; they all dovetail pretty nicely together."

UNIFYING COMMUNICATIONS, PRODUCING LESS CO2
These trends have all contributed to the emergence of the unified communications framework that combines data, voice and video, "bringing things like IM (instant messaging), voice communications and Web videoconferencing together. Often now, when you think about Web conferencing, there's a screen-sharing component, a voice and a video component all being brought together within an integrated framework and service," Saeedi told the E-Commerce Times.

IBM will shortly be celebrating the 10th anniversary of Lotus Sametime, an organizational tool that brings together an IM application and Web conferencing capabilities with integrated audio, video and screen/data sharing capabilities through one application service and user interface.

Collaborative workflow and communication tools like Sametime are vital to businesses such as Intellicare, which provides hospitals nationwide with an on-demand service for hiring nurses and obtaining other specialist support services. In addition to using Sametime to access and manage a much larger talent pool than would otherwise be possible, management, nurses and doctors use it to communicate and share information and data remotely.

"Videoconference use is expanding in tandem with fuel and other travel costs and as more governments introduce reward and taxation incentives to reach carbon reduction objectives," according to Eyenetwork research. "Experts calculate that 1.4 billion (metric) tons of atmospheric CO2 per year (2 percent of global CO2 emissions) were caused by aircraft in 1990, with predictions of 4 billion tons by 2050, or 3 percent of total UN mid-range CO2 projections for that year."

UK Usability market worth more than £200 million by end of 2008

Joanna Bawa — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The UK Usability market will grow by an estimated 20% in 2008 to a value of £214 million, according to research published this week by e-consultancy. The continued growth of this sector is the result of a growing commitment within organisations towards usability and user experience, according to E-consultancy’s 2008 Usability and Accessibility Buyer’s Guide.

E-consultancy’s Head of Research Linus Gregoriadis said: “The growth of this market reflects the on-going buoyancy of the digital sector and the strategic importance of this channel within businesses. The agencies and consultancies profiled in this report continue to report high levels of demand for their services while companies recruit and expand their own in-house teams.”

In previous buyer’s guides, E-consultancy has estimated that the digital usability market was worth £178 million in 2007 and, before that, £148 million in 2006. The value of this sector (which includes the accessibility market) will break through the £200 million mark this year. Although the broader economic outlook remains gloomy, there are many positive signs for the market, including rapidly increasing knowledge of the benefits of user-centred design among UK organisations.

Gregoriadis added: “A growing desire for more usable websites from public and private organisations is not the only source of growth for the industry. Many usability experts are transferring their skills to non-web activities and are already finding them to be a significant source of income.”

Headline market trends:
-) Increased competition in digital marketing drives investment.
-) Awareness of the importance of usability moves beyond the web.
-) More organisations embrace user-centred design.
-) Accessibility becomes 'hygiene factor' rather than separate discipline.

Research suggests growing importance of Usability to UK Businesses

Joanna Bawa — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Growing businesses in the UK have been urged by an expert to consider investing in integrated software solutions.

Rebecca Haines of DMC Software Solutions has stated that the programs, which allow a number of aspects of business including direct marketing to be managed from the same information, have benefits for companies. However, she added that firms should seek advice when choosing the systems to ensure they get software that is tailored to their needs.

She explained: "When it comes too integrated software there is no one size fits all solution. Providing that time is invested in choosing the system it is more than a worthy investment."

Ms Haines' comments come after research by E-consultancy and Clash-Media found that online lead generation is expected to become increasingly important to all kinds of businesses in the UK.

The study found that 82 per cent of companies think the marketing technique will become more vital to their business over the next year.

Web 2.0: Too Smart by a Half?

Joanna Bawa — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

By Joe Sokohl

Ah, yes, it’s time to update your blog, check your tweets on Twitter, update your LinkedIn connections, and Web 2.0-ify your life. Or maybe you’re feeling pressured to 2.0-ify your company? As businesses rush to follow Web 2.0 ephemera, what effect are applications having on people and their ability to just get stuff done? Does the mere fact that a widget exists mean that a user experience is somehow better?

Many innovations come through in Web 2.0 implementations. Users are presented with a wide variety of controllable, malleable, formable experiences. Lightweight engineering solutions break the stranglehold of ponderous approaches that have stifled innovation.

And yet…what is the impact of so many choices? Will the Web 2.0 generation’s epitaph be, “They died with their options open?” When is too much choice too much? In addition, a rush to add the coolest glows and shapes and transitions might win over marketing suits but lose users.

THE USER EXPERIENCE OF WEB 2.0
When we talk about Web 2.0, we need to define of course what we mean. First of all, the innovation of a service-oriented architectural approach can innovate an organization’s idea of the Web as a platform and a service. In addition, we now see the rise of Enterprise 2.0, a melding of Web 2.0 approaches with the sensibilities of the productivity, cost-efficiency, and innovation that enterprises demand.

Yet Web 2.0 also means application development can quickly provide unique interaction behaviors and quick access to persistent data. Using technologies and approaches such as AJAX, RSS, Ruby on Rails, Adobe’s Flex, Microsoft’s Silverlight, and others, developers can develop unique, specific applications quickly. They can easily deliver rich Internet applications (RIAs) using Web technologies, mimicking behaviors that desktop applications provide. Beyond Web 1.0, the new approaches provide expressiveness possibilities that have simply not been technically available. Too, new thinking creates approaches such as mashups, which can bring powerful and meaningful combinations of data together with almost no development effort. And within organizations, groups are creating lightweight collaboration tools, encouraging innovation across organizational silos, and increasing the speed and utility of information flows through self-publishing as well as the bottom-up creation of ad-hoc networks.

We’ve gotten across the chasm with the Web; no longer are masses of people outside looking in. Instead, most people understand and accept that the Web is useful, that it provides information and transaction that they need and (sometimes) trust, and that it pervades their working lives. And as Web 2.0 approaches become ubiquitous, people encounter them not just on their Internet-connected computers but also on their phones, in their cars, and in their homes.

Now, users have more control over their experience. They can choose how to view data, how to display information, and which specific applications to use with almost unfettered control. Web 2.0 technology enables developers to create almost anything…and therein lies the problem.