One of the mistakes I see marketers make frequently is they have delusions about how much “passion” visitors should have on their site.

The experience of surfing the Internet is distant, cold, and removed.  The digital, satellite enabled transmission of data does not cater to emotional seduction.

People insult one another on message boards and through email because the reality of personal presence does not exist.   It’s far too easy to flame someone remotely than in person.  And it happens all the time.

Let me ask you a question.

How many websites can you name for which you feel a warm, personal, spiritual relationship with?  How many interactions have you had with websites that have left you breathless?

I know that right now, you are thinking hard.

Websites cannot give us what people can. Marketers too often forget this.  They want code base to connect with people the only way people can.

I can’t think of one website that has inspired me by way of aesthetics.  The most value I have experienced has been through the cold and clean interface of Craigslist, Wikipedia, and Google.

Websites deliver information.  I want that information quickly so I can go back into the world where my sense are more than virtually stimulated.

Just give information.

Tonight I went to a Bank of America ATM.

I saw a new validation message that I haven’t seen before.

After selecting English as my language, I was prompted with this:

“You’ve selected English as your language. Is this correct? (Yes | No)”.

Let’s consider the scenarios.

1. I understand English, which is necessary to answer the question. I answer yes.
2. I don’t understand English, which is necessary for the question. I hit buttons until something happens.

I usually expect to find these idiotic oversights on web forms. But in the real world, I have a higher standard for usability and design. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because tangible machines seem more important.

People often confuse focus groups and usability tests.

Focus groups are small groups of people (5-8) that sit around a table and react to ideas and designs shown to them.  Since this is a group process, people tend to react to other’s opinions. Focus groups are great for quickly getting a sampling of users’ opinions. Marketers love focus groups, and these sessions should be done EARLY in the process of development in order to determine what people like - NOT how they use something.

A usability test is one user who is shown something and asked to either figure out what it is or try to use it for a typical task.

Focus groups are really meant for determining what your audience wants in the abstract.  Is the product useful?  Would they buy it? Does the brand resonate?

Focus groups should be used EARLY in the process to answer those types of questions.  Focus groups should not be used after a site is developed - they will not tell you whether people can use your site.

When people speak about web usability, they are almost always talking about the human user.

And this makes perfect sense.  Humans have the distinction of being the only known life form to use the Internet.

The problem is, there is an audience sans metabolism: the search engine.

When I wear my SEO hat and look at usability recommendations, I often see solutions that make things simple for humans, but a deal-killer for search engine robots.

I have been working with an in-house team to evolve our usability practice to ensure that our recommendations are suited for both humans and spiders.

One specific example is the use of form fields - which are great for humans.  However, spiders cannot get past forms.

I spoke last week at SES in NYC on the topic of “Search Engine Friendly Design”.  I spoke about the two audiences, and offered my “CSS Silver Bullet Solution”.  Simplistically, CSS can bridge the gap between human and bot “usability”.

I will save those details for a later post.  The take-away here is to make sure your usability reviews think about these two audiences.

When you don’t know what you don’t know.

I recently went to Barcelona for the first time.

Not having been there, I found a site about Barcelona. Oddly, I found myself on the FAQ. I say oddly, because when I was on it, I thought, “Wow, I am NEVER on the FAQ. Why is this situation different?”

I have never used the FAQ on the sites I use all the time: wikipedia.org, nytimes.com, and of course my array of search and usability sites.

I am writing this now because I am working on the information architecture for Academy of Art. I am realizing that education meets the criteria for prospective students that Barcelona met for me. Which is this:

I am about to go somewhere new. If I screw up, my life will suck. What do I need to know to not screw up? What are others asking that I, perhaps, should be asking too?

Ok, so on my first night in Barcelona I mistook a regional train for the subway. Thinking I was going to go two stops, get off in the center of Barcelona and have tapas, I instead found myself on a bullet speed train passing farms.

“This should have been in the FAQ”, I thought.

But there are times when you don’t know the questions you should have asked so as to not be traveling at bullet speed in the wrong direction.

A heuristic evaluation of a website is one done not by studying users, but by reviewing a website against a list of known best practice criteria.

I love the checklist below. Nielsen/Norman came up with this list to guide a heuristic review. My favorite item is “Pages should push no unexpected animation or sound at users”. I think designers can get sucked into a self-absorbed, center-stage frame of mind. They might be spending more time thinking about winning awards than being aware of the below usability items.

General

1. Do not obstruct or compete with users’ critical tasks.
2. Present elements related to specific tasks based on frequency, importance, or sequence.
3. Use buttons and links consistently. Always use the same label for the same function.
4. Pages should push no unexpected animation or sound at users.
5. Allow users to purchase without registering.

Page Layout

6. Layout objects hierarchically to match the user’s expected task flow: left to right or top to bottom. Most users start by scanning the content area.
7. Ensure manageable page lengths. Don’t use scrolling on home pages and make sure interior pages are fewer than 2.5 screens.
8. Ensure that pages can be easily printed and that printing does not cut off critical information. If this is not practical, provide a printable version.

Visual Design

9. Avoid using color as the only source of important data.

10. Don’t design critical information so it looks like advertising.

Navigation

11. Use persistent navigation to support frequent movement between tasks.

12. Don’t force users to hover over something to see options.

Sample Website Experience Best Practices

13. Link names should communicate the content of the page they link to. Avoid genetic links such as Click Here and More.

14. Underline all links. Do not underline any other words. Everything clickable should have a rollover effect.

15. Links should change color to indicate which links the user has visited.

Content

16. Use your user’s vocabulary.

17. Write content that is bloat free (short and simple), correct (spelling, grammar), in the active voice, and interesting.

18. Show price, or lack thereof.

19. Allow users to compare products side by side. Comparison tables should facilitate product differentiation.

Readability

20. Use 10-point font or larger for all text.

21. Maintain high contrast between background and text colors.

22. Use bulleted lists, introductory summaries, clear titles, and stand-alone chunks to facilitate scanning.

23. Use relative rather than fixed fonts.

Search

24. Display a Search box in the upper-right corner of every page.

25. Chunk search results into categories (for example, product information, support, press releases).

Sources: Nielsen/Norman, Human Factors International

It’s not that people are stupid. It’s that they are distracted.

Think of how many things you are doing when you are online. You’re going back and forth between email, multiple browser windows, instant message, and then the stuff you’re supposed to be doing at work.

Many people stream music while they surf. Webmasters who have rich media that automatically make sound are, in my opinion, creating a “call to inaction” - meaning, giving the user incentive to kill the browser.

How many times have you ever heard a website make noise that you wanted to hear?

I love this cartoon. The fewer requirements you have, the better the product. Otherwise the world ends up feeling like the small print on credit card applications.

Yahoo’s strategy: a juicy story that promotes Yahoo’s services

and the jackass from Bank of America (a must see)
First point:

If you haven’t noticed, Yahoo has a new homepage. Here’s what they are doing with it: