This WIF workshop attempts to give a quick overview of web usability:
by demonstrating some common usability problems and their causes
by highlighting the most fundamental, yet most frequently overlooked issue in web design - the notion of user-centred design
While today is merely an overview, we are planning further usability workshops that will offer a range of solutions and strategies for creating usable web sites.
Web usability refers to the degree of ease with which users can complete various tasks using a web site interface with which they are unfamiliar.
Common tasks include:
Many Monash web pages could be made more user-friendly.
The key to designing a usable web site is to adopt an approach that is user-centred, a design philosophy that:
(a) is based on knowledge of your site's potential users; in particular their
(b) sees web site design in terms of heuristics (is it easy to learn to use?) and engineering rather than expression of personal creativity, marketing imperatives, or organisational politics
"The engineering approach has one major benefit: when you are in doubt about whether to choose one design or another, you can pose an empirical question that can be resolved by gathering real data from your customers. Can people find information faster with design A or design B? Do users rate design A or design B best on a standard customer-satisfaction questionnaire? Pick the one that gets the highest scores and not the one you personally like the best."
Jakob Nielsen
Designing Web Usability
Problem: the inability to quickly locate information on a web site
Likely cause(s):
(a) badly-designed navigation
(b) site architecture inappropriate
(c) no readily-accessible search facility
(d) poor page layout/use of screen real estate
(e) broken link(s)
(f) information that is out of date
1. Philosophy in Cyberspace
(too many steps required to navigate; poorly named navigational aids)
2. S3
(unnamed navigation icons; alt tags don't work on Macs)
3. All About Lawns
(search engine placement; search results)
Problem: getting lost or stuck in a site
Likely cause(s):
(a) badly-designed navigation
(b) no site location indicators on pages
(c) orphan pages (no internal links)
(d) broken back button on browser
(e) opening unnecessary browser windows
Problem: getting lost or stuck in a site
1. Free Typewriter Fonts
http://hem.passagen.se/webbsida/Free_Fonts/Typewriter/index.htm
(kills back navigation in Netscape)
2. Ask Jeeves
(traps user in frame)
3. Sonya Hender and Assoc. and again.
(appears to break back button; orphan frame pages)
Problem: inability to properly view page content or parts thereof
Likely cause(s):
(a) page not cross-platform/cross-browser compatible
(b) page not authored to web accessibility (WAI) standards
(c) page not designed to 'degrade gracefully' in older browsers
(d) page design does not take account of different monitor resolutions
(e) HTML markup does not conform to standards
(f) reliance on non-present client-side technology (e.g. javascript, browser plug-ins)
(g) faulty or inappropriate use of client-side technology
Problem: inability to properly view page content or parts thereof
1. Netspot
(no text alternatives to images)
2. Hear Me
(doesn't work in Netscape)
3. Monash University Secretariat
http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/unisec/
(inappropriate use of javascript)
Problem: page difficult to print
Likely cause(s):
(a) fixed page width too wide
(b) inappropriate use of background colours/images
(c) graphics used as text
Problem: page difficult to print
1. Leo Burnett Technology Group
(text is image that doesn't print properly)
2. Victorian Government
(fixed width page that's too wide to print)
Problem: slow page download times
Likely cause(s):
(a) gratuitous use of graphics and/or multimedia
(b) failure to optimise graphics
(c) too much content on one page
Problem: slow page download times
1. Guide to Philosophy
(page too long - 350Kb)
2. Spanish Department
(gratuitous use of sound; images not optimised)
While these web sites suffer from a range of usability problems, all do so primarily because of a failure to approach web design from the user's point of view.
involves a commitment to basing web design on
(a) a range of known usability principles and methods
(b) knowable facts - via usability testing - about how our web users interact with our web sites
Usability is a specialist field, however we don't need to be experts to make our sites more usable.
We need to become familiar with a range of usability design methods and principles.
As part of this series of workshops, we will be running a number of sessions on usability issues, including:
and we're more than happy to cover any topics suggested by you.
Jakob Nielsen, Alertbox
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/
Keith Instone, Usable Web
http://www.usableweb.com/
Terry Sullivan, The Usable Web
http://www.pantos.org/atw/usable.html
Bruce Tognazzini, Ask Tog
http://www.asktog.com/menus/designMenu.html
John S. Rhodes, Webword
http://webword.com/
Yale/CAIM, Web Style Guide
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/
Authoring and Design for the World Wide Web (with particular reference to Higher Education)
http://www.man.ac.uk/MVC/SIMA/sbd/title.html
Guidelines for Commonwealth information published in electronic formats
http://www.ausinfo.gov.au/guidelines/
Queensland Government Web Style Guide
http://www.premiers.qld.gov.au/policies/internet/webstyle/manual.htm
Sun, Guide to Web Style
http://www.sun.com/styleguide/
Library of Congress, Web Style Guide
http://lcweb.loc.gov/loc/webstyle/
Tim Berners-Lee, Style Guide for Online Hypertext
http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/
Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C), Web Accessibility Initiative
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
Wendy Chisholm, Enabling Your Website: A Brief Introduction to Disabilities Affecting Web Use
http://designshops.com/pace/ds/pub/1999/08/able.html
Agelight Institute, A Guide for Effective Web Design and Usability for Users of All Ages
http://www.agelight.org/web%20docs/Usability/contents.htm
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) HTML Validation Service
http://validator.w3.org/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) CSS Validation Service
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
CAST, Bobby
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
Pennsylvania's Initiative on Assistive Technology, The Wave
http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/
Delorie Software: Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer
http://www.delorie.com/web/wpbcv.html
Gif Optimizer
http://www.gifoptimizer.com/
Gif Wizard
http://www.gifwizard.com/
David Pescovitz, 'Does Your Site Work? Ask a Usability Guru',
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/1,1151,444,00.html
User Interface Engineering, 'Observing What Didn't Happen',
http://world.std.com/~uieweb/observng.htm
User Interface Engineering, 'Eight Is More than Enough',
http://world.std.com/~uieweb/eight.htm
User Interface Engineering, 'Usability Labs: Our Take',
http://world.std.com/~uieweb/
Keith Instone, 'Conducting Your First User Test',
http://webreview.com/97/05/30/usability/
Keith Instone, 'User Test Your Web Site',
http://webreview.com/97/04/25/usability/
Jakob Nielsen, 'Summary of Heuristic Evaluation Methods',
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/inspection_summary.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'How to Conduct a Heuristic Evaluation',
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_evaluation.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Ten Usability Heuristics',
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Severity Ratings for Usability Problems'
http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/severityrating.html
Jennifer Fleming, 'User Testing: how to find out what users want',
http://www.ahref.com/guides/design/199806/0615jef.html
Jakob Nielsen & Donald A Norman, 'Usability on the Web Isn't a Luxury',
http://www.informationweek.com/773/web.htm
Jeffrey Veen, 'Test Your Designs - On People',
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/tools/97/39/index0a.html
Mike Kuniavsky, 'Why User Testing is Good',
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/98/14/index3a.html?tw=design
Donald A Norman 'Walkthrough: A Usability Experiment',
http://www.informationweek.com/773/we2.htm
Jakob Nielsen and Donald A. Norman, 'Get the Right Answers from Testing',
http://www.informationweek.com/773/we3.htm
Seth Gordon, 'How to Plan, Execute and Report on a Usability Evaluation'
http://www.builder.com/Graphics/Evaluation/
Mel Duval, 'How Are Your Users Using Your Site?',
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0%2C4164%2C2435290%2C00.html
Constant Peterson, 'Usability Testing'
http://community.borland.com/devnews/article/1,1714,20102,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Cheap Usability Tests'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2224316,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Cost of User Testing a Web Site'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/alertbox/980503.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Test Your Old Site'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2156093,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'User Testing'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2137666,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'How to Get a Usable Web Site'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2137664,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Web Usability: Why and How'
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2137433,00.html
Jakob Nielsen, 'Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users'
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html
