Marketing & SEO Discussion List - LED Digest

Does Good Usability Make Dull Sites?

> Item 2 on [Jakob Nielsen's] list was "Non-Standard Links"

> where it states "Violating common expectations for how links

> work is a sure way to confuse and delay users, and might

> prevent them from being able to use your site."

    - Tom Aman, LED 2219

This doesn't seem to bother Microsoft. Just have a look at MSN's home page.

Mr Nielsen obviously knows a lot about usability, but it seems to me his concept is taking it to the extreme, at the expense of any sort of design integrity. Would you really want your commercial website to look like this? View that page on a high res monitor in an expanded window, where the text spreads right across the screen with no graphics to break it up. I don't find it easy to read at all.

Imagine if MSN was designed, or perhaps I should say non-designed, in the Neilsen manner. What sort of image would that impart to the visitor? Imagine if every website you visited followed the Nielsen formula. Usable maybe, but dull as dishwater. The Web is a vibrant, colorful environment. Surely we can make sites usable without sacrificing some degree of design flair.

I think common expectations on how links work have changed in the last decade. Even people who are taught that all links are blue and underlined soon realize that this isn't actually the case. As long as your links are consistent the great majority of users will navigate your site just fine.

Steve Pronger

stevepronger.com

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Written by Steven Mareches
August 9, 2006

Steve,

I'm afraid you're heading in the wrong direction if you really wish to take issue with the points Jakob Nielsen made. Each and every one of them are important to observe if we are truly interested in usability. That after all is what cutting edge web site design embraces. Several years ago Amazon.com had spent about $2 million in usability research and they came to pretty much the same conclusions.

So beginning by about 2002 our commercial designs were developed to become more simple for users and since just about everything we've done has been commercial sites, that served as a pretty good guideline. Personally I've come up with the motto "Simplest is best. It's also the hardest to design."

Graphics for the sake of graphics serve well in print and film media, but to overly indulge in graphic arts in commercial web sites so that other web designers think we're cool was something that should have fallen by the wayside. Right about the time we learned being the loudest guitarist in town isn't really part of playing rock and roll. (Trust me, I learned that one the hard way!) The medium is the message.

With a good color scheme supported by CSS and interesting photos, we can develop graphic layouts that communicate the site's content without going nuts on the beauties of what a graphic arts program can do.

Flash? If you know it's Flash when you see it, as it is used most often, forget it. It serves no purpose but to bolster the ego of the designer. A bit like singing two bars of "Flight of the Valkyries" at the beginning of a conversation.  We have seen some exceptional use of Flash, but I've always been concerned about the people who do not have it installed. Do we really expect somebody to go download something so we can display a full screen of gyrating images that tell the user nothing about what they may actually be seeking?

As far as some kind of norm that users expect, there are new users every day online, and to assume that they are up to speed with people who've been banging around since the '90's is simply unrealistic. We have clients who are still trying to figure out how to use a browser, and the fact is they are buyers too. To ignore where people are in their development leaves them out of the picture, literally.

I do customer support for one of our sites that has about 1300 users in the high-end home remodeling and construction field. One thing it's taught me is to not assume anything. Even with clear indications of navigation like "Click here to upload your photos", many users are thinking about 10 things at once, so they may miss things.

As far as the slam on the page Jakob built to convey these points, I am reminded of the time I went outside and some nice person had smashed the rear windshield of my old 'Benz. The company I bought the replacement from had a plain vanilla all-text web site. They didn't even have a logo. But they did have the information I needed and I needed it quickly. Did I really care about their color scheme?

I'm sure this will ruffle a few feathers, but we work for our audience. Too often we may forget what life is like for the user. She's looking for information, not the latest trick we've learned to perform.

Stephen Mareches, Web Consultant

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Written by David Spahr
August 9, 2006

> As long as your links are consistent the great

> majority of users will navigate your site just fine.

    - Steve Pronger

When people come to my sites, I want all of them to be able to figure out navigation, not a "great majority". Since I deal with antique people, many of whom are Luddites and not very computer savvy, I have always felt that making navigation simple and obvious was the best policy. I get the "I'm not that good with computers" comment all the time. The "great majority" is much smaller in this group.

I am not an SEO but a site owner / builder who has read this list since 1998 at least. Maybe my site is as dull as dishwater to some people but I get a lot of feedback that says otherwise and I make a living.

I read Jakob Nielsen's "top ten mistakes of 2005" and could not find a way to disagree with any of them. I felt extremely validated. I have always followed these principles and often said so on this list. I am not a "follower" of Mr. Nielson. This is the first time I have ever seen this page. Thanks to Steve for pointing it out. His page was not exciting. It didn't need to be. I appreciated his directness and simplicity. If I buy a book, I don't need colored paper or fancy graphics on my pages. I'll soon lose the dust jacket and forget about the graphics that were on the cover, but if the book was good, I'll remember the content.

I'm sure many will say my site is dated. It is. I have known that for a long time. I have run it since 1997 and it retains popularity every year with customers and the searches. Since my site shows up No. 1 in all search engines for the search terms that matter most to me ("stereoviews" and "antique photography" and other close relatives) I have resisted the urge to give my site a major face lift. I occasionally make small changes that do not violate Mr. Nielsen's aforementioned principles: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html.

Please don't say "yea but your site is No. 1 of only 190,000 search results and that is not a big deal" as someone did on this list in the past. I won't take a comment like that seriously.

We have read on this list just recently about how face lifted sites suddenly have taken a precipitous drop in the searches. I don't need that. I won't throw out the dishes with the dishwater. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

David Spahr

Stereoviews.com

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Written by Tom Aman
August 10, 2006

> This doesn't seem to bother Microsoft. Just have

> a look at MSN's home page.

    - Steve Pronger

This was a comment on my post about Jakob Nielsen's comment on "Non-Standard Links" where it states "Violating common expectations for how links work is a sure way to confuse and delay users, and might prevent them from being able to use your site."

Personally, I find many parts of various Microsoft sites a pain to navigate and the MSN sites are among the worst.  You cannot tell exactly what is a link for sure (just about everything in blue is) but the worst part is that, after visiting a link and coming back to the home page, there is nothing to indicate which links you have already visited.  My ISP is Sympatico (Canadian) and their home page is an MSN site (http://sympatico.msn.ca/) with lots of content.  But I usually give up in frustration after visiting 4 or 5 interesting items because I lose track of which items I have already seen.  Just because a site represents a big company does not automatically make it user friendly with a good UI.

> Mr Nielsen obviously knows a lot about usability, but it seems

> to me his concept is taking it to the extreme, at the expense of

> any sort of design integrity. Would you really want your

> commercial website to look like [Jakob Nielsen's site]?

Doesn't have to look like his site - the *real* design challenge is to produce a great looking site that still meets all of the usability criteria.

> I think common expectations on how links work

> have changed in the last decade.

Expectations on how links work have not really changed in the last decade except that surfers are prepared to be frustrated by not being able to easily pick out the links or figure out the navigation or not be able to display the page properly at their prefered display size with their prefered text size.

Back to the quote from my original post:

Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that "users spend most of their time on other websites." If your site is too different, users may not bother sticking around. I also quote comments on links from a totally different site (http://usability.gov):

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"Generally, it is best to use the default text link colors (blue as an unvisited location / link and purple as a visited location / link). Link colors help users understand which parts of a website they have visited. In one study, providing this type of feedback was the only variable found to improve the user's speed of finding information. If a user selects one link, and there are other links to the same target, make sure all links to that target change color."

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Of particular interest is the section "Research-Based Web Design Usability Guidelines" at: http://usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html

This gives all kinds of guidelines and, usually, the reasons for them.  It also gives useful information I have never seen elsewhere.  For example, regarding font sizes, it points out that fonts typically will display 2 or 3 points smaller on a Mac system than the same font on a Windows system.

And from the site "Beginner's Guide >> Building a Traffic-Worthy Site" at http://www.seomoz.org/articles/bg5.php:

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"Standards like blue, underlined links, top and side menu bars, logos in the top, left-hand corner may seem like rules that can be bent, but adherence to these elements (with which web users are already familiar) will help to make a site usable."

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Designers should bear in mind that User Interface design is a specialized field in its own right.  Most Web site designers, professional or otherwise, are not UI experts and are strongly influenced by other things and their own preferences (myself included).  Those with a printed page background tend to try to translate that experience to the Web, sometimes with good success, sometimes not because some things don't work so well on a variable size computer display area.  Others like the *neat* things that can be done with Javascript, Flash, etc. and want to include that on their pages.  Still others want to make the pages they design really unusual / different / unlike any others.

In software development and systems design, many companies will spend thousands and thousands of dollars trying to get the UI right.  IBM spent $60,000 on one project and ended up saving $6,000,000. Some get it so right that the UI is almost totally intuitive and you can use the program almost without reading the manual.  Others get it so wrong (maybe they didn't spend the dollars on the UI design) that, even with extensive reference to the user manual, the program is almost unusable because it is so hard to figure out how to use many of the features, even for commonly required tasks.  Most software falls somewhere in between but, most of the time, the really successful versions on the market are the ones that are easiest to use because they involve the shortest learning curve (best UI).

When a user visits your site, particularly for the first time, you need the shortest learning curve possible since you may only have seconds to keep the surfer there.  So why would you want to go for the fancy, the different, the really unusual, that takes time to figure out so the learning curve is longer?  Staying within the standard (a link is blue and underlined, a visited link is purple and underlined) means no learning curve at all except for understanding the purpose of the site by reading the clear text. The design challenge is to stay within the basic usability criteria and still be fancy / different / unusual.

As I stated in my previous post, you can try to justify a variety of design approaches and being different all you like but, ultimately, users do spend most of their time on other websites.  If yours is too different, they may well leave in frustration. Worth thinking about.

Tom Aman

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Written by Steve Pronger
August 10, 2006

Stephen,

I'm not suggesting that web designers should ignore usability issues. I actually agree with many of the points Nielsen makes, but not all. I also agree with many of the points you make as well. What I am suggesting is that good design can co-exist with usability, and that websites don't have to be dull to be usable.

I've long advocated simple, clean designs with a minimum of distractions. I don't like Flash anymore than you do. I don't believe a web designer's role is to impress other web designers. Heck, a web designer on this list (lovely bloke that he is) once told me that my site looked like it was designed with crayons :-). But I don't mind. His site had a sparkling waterfall on the home page. Impressive, intricate graphic design is not what I'm about. It just detracts from the message which the text is trying to convey. Truth be known, I probably suck at graphic design.

> With a good color scheme supported by CSS and

> interesting photos, we can develop graphic layouts

> that communicate the site's content without going

> nuts on the beauties of what a graphic arts program

> can do.

Agreed. Absolutely. But that's what Nielsen's site lacks - a good colour scheme and interesting photos. It lacks a "look and feel" which is what makes it dull in my view. It doesn't have to be intricate. It shouldn't BE intricate. But a commercial website needs to be more than just "usable".  It has to convey professionalism and trust. If it doesn't say to you "we take pride in our website because we take pride in our business" will you want to stay? A commercial website is where business takes place. Just like any bricks and mortar store, it's designed to make you feel comfortable doing that. Sure, your Benz spare parts guy got your business with a simple text based site, but would Microsoft want to convey the same first impression as your Benz parts guy? That was my point in the MSN example. I admire the Amazon model as well, but it still has "design". It's not dull. In fact it's a good example of design + usability.

I had a quick look at one of your concept pieces - I see colour. I see "design". Quite appropriate for a hairdressing business I would have thought. But now transpose the Nielsen "non-design" on to that site. Would it work?

> I'm sure this will ruffle a few feathers,

> but we work for our audience.

True, but we also work for the people who pay us to build websites for them, and they often have pretty firm ideas on how their business is presented to the world.

> I don't need colored paper or fancy graphics on my

> pages. I'll soon lose the dust jacket and forget about

> the graphics that were on the cover, but if the book

> was good, I'll remember the content.

    - David Spahr

Agreed, it's the content which delivered the goods. Again, I'm a content guy. Truly I am. But the dust jacket DID have graphics, didn't it? It was "designed" to get your attention and get you to pick up the book. Would you have noticed it in the bookstore and been tempted to pick it up and delve deeper, if it didn't?

> Please don't say "yea but your site is No. 1 of only 190,000

> search results and that is not a big deal" as someone did...

That would have been me, because if memory serves you emailed me off-list to voice your indignation. And yes, keyword competition is still a factor in rankings. Take it seriously or otherwise, I'm not here to convince you of anything. But this thread is on design and usability, not SEO. I deliberately posted on it, hoping to spark some good debate (it did) so I could talk about something other than SEO and linking for a change.

Steve Pronger

stevepronger.com

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Written by Tom Aman
August 11, 2006

> But that's what Nielsen's site lacks - a good colour

> scheme and interesting photos. It lacks a "look and

> feel" which is what makes it dull in my view.

    - Steve Pronger

Follow the link near the bottom of Nielsen's site (useit.com) to go to a page where he explains why his site has almost no graphics (there are some where they are most appropriate).  Aside from anything else, it makes it a pleasure to print out any of his articles since I am not using up printer ink for pretty pictures that add nothing to the information.

Nielsen points out:

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"One benefit of the small number of graphics on this site is that I can serve a quarter million unique users per month with a relatively cheap Web hosting account (about 50 GB/month data transfer) that covers both sites."

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As an aside, I note that useit.com, as well as another associated site, nngroup.com and some others, are hosted by Pair Networks (LED's sponsor).

Tom Aman

While visiting this website - www.learninglight.net - I noticed a nifty little onboard tool they have for easily changing the size of the fonts to a larger size. Just scroll down a bit and you'll find it on the left side of the webpage, right under the navigation links. With this tool these people are sending the message that they really care about their website visitors, which leads me to also believe that they have a very high level of customer care.

And isn't that a goodly part of what usability is all about?

Love,

Kathy Wilson

under-one-roof.net

<Moderator Comment>

The new LED site has this function, too. Check it out in the upper right of the page. Hope you find it useful! I use it all the time, I'm usually increasing font size by the evening since my eyes start to tire out...

-Adam

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