Usability
If your users don’t have a good experience using your applications, well, you know what might happen next.
Unit Goals
To gain a working knowledge of some usability issues.
A Definition
The ISO says the usability of an interface is a measure of the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users can achieve specified goals in a particular environment with that interface.
Exercise: Find out what the moniker UI/UX refers to.
References
The Nielsen Norman Group has a massive amount of information on usability. There’s a Wikipedia article on the subject too.
Usability Recommendations for Web Applications
Here are some traditional (in most cases ancient) usability "recommendations" that are widely known, though many are debated (since the web of today is in some sense different from the web of 25 years ago):
- Don't ignore non-English speaking visitors. Provide translation.
- Put the search box on the home page
- Don't overdo it with the graphics
- Make sure visually impaired visitors can still use your site
- Make sure the pages download QUICKLY
- Use thumbnails with links to larger images to help speed downloading (also, the thumbnail needn't be a reduced version of the WHOLE image)
- Make the search engine flexible enough to recognize typos
- Provide consistent navigation throughout the site
- Convey your basic mission on your "home page"
- Frames usually suck
- Splash screens usually suck
- Avoid clutter
- Avoid (too much) annoying marquees and animations
- Don't mess with the default link colors
- Jakob Nielsen's Ten Good Deeds in Web Design
- Avoid each of Jakob
Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes of Web Deisgn
- Avoid each of Jakob
Nielsen's Top Ten Mistakes of Web Deisgn of 1999
- Don't move pages. URIs should live forever.
- Avoid absolute font sizes
- Make sure your site is still functional for users that don't
have browsers that understand style sheets or can play
animations or show images.
- Control the consistency of your site with a single external
style sheet, rather than using embedded styles.
Exercise: The Nielsen Norman Group articles referenced above are about 20 years old. Find some new, more modern, and useful (SORRY!) articles.
Want more? The Nielsen Norman Group will sell you
a series of 13 reports on specific topics with 837 design guidelines based on their usability research with over 1500 screenshots.
Other Things That Matter
Have you thought about names?
Read this article. And read this one too.
Did you already know all that?
Oh, and while you’re reading that second article, read the related articles too.
Summary
We’ve covered:
- A definition of usability
- A seemingly random, not terrible useful list of usability guidelines
- Shoutouts to the Nielsen Norman Group
- Don’t make assumptions about peoples’ names