Afraid So: Horrible Web Monstrosities

Here they come. Nightmare web sites that, from a usability perspective, are horrid monsters. When you're tired and in a hurry, you want a web site to quickly and easily provide relevant content to you, so you can solve a problem or perform some task. Discover common hideous impediments to web usability. WARNING: Not for the faint hearted!

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

Altruistic vs. Narcissistic Web Sites

Users are repulsed by web sites that are narcissistic, egotistic, corporate-speak, hard to understand, and difficult to use. Users are attracted to and enjoy web sites that are altruistic, user-prioritized, user-focused, easy to understand, easy to use, and full of fresh, relevant content.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

The Art of Being Human

Site visitors crave the sense that someone is there, within and behind your Web pages, your emails and newsletters. Dealing with the bare technology of online interactions is a cold experience for many, or even most of us. It makes us feel anxious. Technology isn't warm. It has no heart. It neither understands us, nor cares for us. For many Web sites, whether for businesses or organizations, we simply plug in and play the bare technology - the super-duper means of information delivery. All the site visitor sees and feels is the design, the interface, the links and the clicks. The experience is about as warm and human as banking with an ATM machine.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Customer Support on the Web: Don't Call Us, We'll Call You

Sometimes, when a customer looks for contact information for Customer Support, it is hidden from view or buried beneath layers of menus. Some companies even deliberately hide their contact information, because they simply don't want customers to contact them. So, what factors should you consider if your goal is providing more optimal customer support on the Web?

Szuc, Daniel. UXmatters (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Help

Engagement: The Definition Debate

I know what engagement is (everyone does), but I don't know what it means or how to explain it, let alone how to measure it. In a digital marketing context, I think it's one of those words that everyone understands but can't define.

Mason, Neil. ClickZ (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Eyes Top Left: Lessons from Eyetrack III

Where do your eyes go when you read articles on the Web? What do you notice, and what do you miss? The upper left quarter of the screen gets the most attention, according to the Eyetrack III research of The Poynter Institute, the Estlow Center for Journalism & New Media, and Eyetools.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Eye Tracking

Fast Surfing, Broad Scanning and Deep Diving: The Influence of Personality and Study Approach on Students' Information-Seeking Behavior  

To explore information behavior from a psychological perspective by relating information seeking to personality traits and study approaches. Fast surfing could be related to a surface study approach and emotionality, as well as to low openness to experience and low conscientiousness. Broad scanning was linked to extraversion, openness, and competitiveness, whereas deep diving was a search pattern typical of analytical students with a deep and strategic study approach.

Heinström, Jannica. Journal of Documentation (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Cognitive Psychology

Five-Second Tests: Measuring Your Site's Content Pages

On your site, the content page is the user's most frequent final destination. This page contains the information the user came to the site to find. Sites often have hundreds, if not thousands (and in some cases, millions) of these critical pages. How can design teams be confident their content pages are understandable to users? How does a team ensure they've designed content pages that communicate the essential information effectively?

Perfetti, Christine. User Interface Engineering (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

Growing a Business Website: Fix the Basics First

Clear content, simple navigation, and answers to customer questions have the biggest impact on business value. Advanced technology matters much less.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Guidelines for Web Data Collection: Understanding and Interacting with Your Users    

The global growth of the World Wide Web challenges technical communicators to reconsider the methods we use to create designs that meet the goals and needs of our users. This article focuses on taking advantage of the Web's potential for interactivity between designers and users. It offers strategies for getting data from users of Web sites and using it for two main purposes: (1) analyzing audience and patterns of use to support continuous redesign, and (2) building a relationship or sense of community on a Web site.

Ramey, Judith A. Technical Communication Online (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Relinquish Control

How could there be a successful business model in actively sending people away from your site? Seven years and a $75 billion market capitalization later, that question has obviously been answered.

Merholz, Peter. Adaptive Path (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

How Little Do Users Read?

On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>User Centered Design

How to Create and Promote a Blog in Eight Easy Steps

A new buzzword you should know about is 'blog' or 'web log', meaning web log, digital journal, or online diary. Blogs are the Next Big Thing to hit the Internet, after conventional Web Sites.

Streight, Steven. Usability Interface (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging

Information Architecture through Web Analytics

Is your website structured according to the needs of your users? Does it deliver on your website objectives? Use Web Analytics to redesign it.

Hurol Inan (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis

Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Search

Informed Design: Understanding Your Web Audience

Although there are lots of elements to consider when designing compelling Web experiences (writing style, look and feel, information organization--to name just a few), there is one 'knowable' element that can be used to appraise the rest: audience.

Wroblewski, Luke. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

Internal Search: Seven Ways to Ensure Your Users Can Find Your Information  

User Vision's top seven tips on how to ensure your internal search is capable of meeting the needs of your users.

Rourke, Chris. User Vision (2008). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Search

An Introduction to User Journeys

User journeys are a method for conceptualising and structuring a website's content and functionality. These journeys allow us to shift away from thinking about structure in terms of hierarchies or a technical build; instead you create a narrative around your user's needs.

Hobbs, Jason. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>User Experience

Key Steps in Creating Your Reader Persona

The Web is about self-service and self-service is about simplicity and convenience. You've got a small screen and every time you add something extra to that screen you make the world more complicated for your reader. You must make very difficult choices if you want your website to work. You can't serve everybody, and if you try to you will serve nobody.

McGovern, Gerry. uiGarden (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Personas

Low Bandwidth and the Highs of Web Design

The emergence of Internet was, and still is a fascinating thing to happen in technology firmament. The ease and the comforts of connecting to people, defying geographical boundaries, and getting a global audience for businesses were unparalleled -- first of its kind ever. So wonderful a thing has, unfortunately, got its share of woes -- the connection speed. The bandwidth of Internet connectivity was considerable at the time when it was entirely new to the world. The newness of the medium did not let it know to the excited lots of users and beneficiaries. Gradually, when people wished for more speed, they earnestly expected that things will turn favorable in the times ahead. Strategy is not something entirely applicable to chart out the direction of a corporation. Yeah, Your web design has to be strategized as well if you wish to serve your target audience in business friendly manner.

Azam, Rahbre. Amateur Writerz (2008). Articles>Web Design>Technical Writing>User Centered Design

Mobile Phone Games Designed for Girls

Unlike many game developers, one company creates games primarily targeted at young women and girls. MiniFizz is certainly not just a traditional boys’ game painted pink.

Allaeys, Sabine. Usability Interface (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Wireless Web>Games

Path Analysis: A Good Use of Time?

Is doing Path Analysis a good use of time? In my humble opinion the answer is a rather emphatic no, except for one exception (which I'll discuss below). Almost always Path Analysis tends to be a sub optimal use of our time, resources and any money that is expended on buying tools that do 'great' Path Analysis.

Kaushik, Avinash. Occam's Razor (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Log Analysis

A Preliminary Report on Two Pilot Readability/Usability Studies  

Companies are beginning to conduct readability studies to determine how to provide customers with usable sites. Results have been inconclusive, conflicting, and often contradicting results of printed text studies. To discover how users use web sites, two pilot studies were designed to examine users, their purposes, and their reading processes. Many results parallel those of previous studies. In addition, new results indicate we need to examine several new variables, including amount of usage, site-specific knowledge, conventionalization, print bias, gender and age.

Boiarsky, Carolyn. STC Proceedings (2002). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability

Printing the Web

Despite predictions to the contrary, it doesn't seem that the advent of networked information sharing has reduced human consumption of paper. In fact, given the amount of printouts modern offices and homes produce, one is inclined to say that even more paper is generated today than ever before.

Kalbach, James. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design

RSS Will Replace E-mail for Marketing Purposes: What You Need to Build Right Now to be Ready

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication (depending on who you believe). If you don't know what it is, you had best grow a brain about it tout de suite.

Improving Customer Experience (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>RSS