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Redesign: Usability

Monday 23 February, 2004 ( 3:09PM GMT)

Here's the thing: the easier something is to use, the more likely it is that someone will use it and so the more successful it should be.

It seems to me that a great number of web designers roll their eyes at the sound of Jakob Nielsen and use terms such as 'Nielsenist' or 'Nielsenism' in a jokingly derogatory way, often implying that following Nielsen's advice will lead to something that is unnecessarily extreme and usually uninteresting to look at. That Nielsen's own site looks like a close relative to Teletext doesn't help.

The thing is, useit.com does its job spiffingly - ultimate web usability is over-the-top zero-graphics uninteresting to look at pages that load like lightning and take the user straight into the content. But most of us have to live in the real world - a world obsessed with image.

Visual appeal is a necessary 'evil' that is very important to the success of a modern website and it must have a carefully arranged marriage with usability.

There are certain aspects of the HTML Dog redesign that have probably hindered usability to a tiny degree, in particular the graphical header and logo but the idea is that although usability has been compromised slightly, the end result is something that should be more successful long term (as discussed recently). On the other hand, the CSS file has been reduced by around 25% and many graphical elements have been pulled out so pages should load even faster and in that respect usability will have been increased.

Building web pages with web standards has one massive (often unintentional) advantage - it heightens usability. This is because structured HTML with a dollop of CSS will lead to lighter, faster pages than old-school methodologies. I'm not the only one who has talked about rebuilding existing web pages and reducing file sizes by around 75%, leading to a web page that is four times quicker to load. Web standards should also lead to greater consistency in design (from a central CSS file), better reliability and much improved accessibility.

Personally, I think that usability is the single most important element of web design. Web design isn't just about technology and art, it's about psychology.

And having said that, in many ways Nielsen is like Freud - many may lambast him, but the fundamental principles that he has championed are commonplace and applied by practitioners as second nature.

Comments

Comment 1

Well said.

I am tired of seeing Nielsen lambasted. The man very obviously knows what he's talking and almost everything he advocates makes perfect sense.

I think that many criticise him because his "perfect" targets are, as you state, virtually impossible in the real world. But I think that misses the point. The point, to my mind, is that one doesn't have to go the whole Nielsen hog. If each designer just followed 80% of Nielsen's recommendations, then the web would be immeasurably better.

I strive for usability. I strive for simplicity. I strive for an intuitive UI. But I don't sacrifice visual design to the cause. It doesn't matter - the websites I create today are better than those I created in the past because I'm aware of the problems and the issues and I'm aware of them because of Nielsen, Tognazzini, et al.

Nothing is perfect, all we can do is aim to get as close as we can.

So said DarkBlue on Monday 23 February, 2004 at 5:33PM GMT.

Comment 2

C'mon, do you really think www.useit.com is really usable? Sure, JN has valid points and many of them, but let's face it - a lot of unstyled content is not much more usable than overstyled content. No visual guidance, no whitescpace, scarce visual clues, unclear hierarchy.
Who invented that idea, that unstyled reading is the best reading? Take a book, any book you remember to be read pleasantly, and then another one, the one you had hard time reading. No compare them, that my reveal a thin or to.
That I hate most on useit.com - text border to border. Put away "fixed vs. fluid" flame -- do need som margin for my eys to rest.
And that poor usability (or call it "user experience") of useit.com lowers credibility of points it makes -- no matter how valid they are.

So said Rimantas on Tuesday 24 February, 2004 at 8:24AM GMT.

Comment 3

Basically, the basis of all of Jakob's ideas is a hell of a lot of real user testing. Although some might dispute some of his testing methodologies, he's collected a hell of alot of data from people really using the web. This is one thing that you can't dispute. For that alone, you've got to give his finding some degree of respect.

I agree though, I don't think useit.com is very usable at all. You really need to make the effort to find your way around. There are very little in the way of prompts to guide you around.

So said [Anon] on Tuesday 24 February, 2004 at 12:02PM GMT.

Comment 4

I started to think that maybe I was wrong about useit.com so I went on over there and played around. I think it's really usable. It isn't your average website with navigation column, which to one extent is bad usability-wise. "Users spend more time on other sites than on your site" is something he has said, suggesting that trying to do something different than the norm is detrimenal to usability.

But useit.com is a small site with just one regularly updated section - the Alertbox. And on the home page it's right there - a linked heading followed by a brief synopsis of the latest article. And this is followed by links to recent articles. The news thing to the right, again, does it's job clearly and concisely. It's all there. And if you're looking for something specific there's a prominent search box in the top right.

In fact, the only thing I can think that could be improved is taking out the 'New' images and doing something with CSS. That's it.

So said Patrick on Tuesday 24 February, 2004 at 12:32PM GMT.

Comment 5

Patric, there was a useit.com redesign contest at http://anomy.net/useit.competition/ but things went quiet since.
Going back to useit.com again. Ok, I can take a point that site does not need very clear and pronaunced navigation. Still, having alertbox as
hot spot some effor could be made to make it more readable. Thereis almost no space between lines and that blue bold, blue bold underlined, black bold stuff...
Well it may be just a matter of taste. I agree with http://www.stcsig.org/oi/hyperviews/archive/01Fall/014cwebr.htm and my take is on Steve Krug and his Don't Make Me Think.

So said Rimantas on Wednesday 25 February, 2004 at 12:50AM GMT.

Comment 6

Hmmm.... the article at the end of that link is a bit poor. At first I thought it might be interesting, suggesting that it will compare useit.com to the principles Nielsen lays out in 'Designing Web Usability' but it doesn't and is largely a subjective, unfocussed site critique that carries no empirical evidence either in comparison to the book or to real world usability issues.

But Steve Krug's book is certainly on my shopping list, at the top of the list in fact. It has been for some time. I should really get my ass in gear and buy it....

As for the colours/boldness/underlines/space between lines, well, on a usability front I'm willing to believe that Jakob knows what he's doing. There's not always one rule that suits all, in fact there rarely is, but, as the anonymous commenter above points out, Nielsen has conducted a hell of a lot of user testing on web sites, I'd imagine more than anyone else on the planet and if that's what he finds is most usable, who am I, with no evidence to the contrary to disagree?

So said Patrick on Wednesday 25 February, 2004 at 10:06AM GMT.

Comment 7

I am currently reading the Danish translation of Nielsen's "Designing Web Usability", and in it he specificalle writes:

I do not demand that all my rules are applied to every project. Experienced professionals know when to follow the rules and when to bend or even break them. But you must KNOW the rules in order to properly decide how to apply them to whatever project you are working on.

So said sandbox on Wednesday 25 February, 2004 at 10:22AM GMT.

Comment 8

The question is who are those professionals? Information architects, designers, programmers, marketeers? And who decides? And are they only to apply JN's usability rules? If it is JN who decides who is a specialist, designers are not on the list it seems. The fact that JN has convinced so many people to take him seriously as a usability speciaist (which is great in many ways) raises questions about why JN does not acknowledge web designers as web design specialists?

So said caroline on Thursday 26 February, 2004 at 1:14PM GMT.

Comment 9

You state that "There are certain aspects of the HTML Dog redesign that have probably hindered usability to a tiny degree, in particular the graphical header and logo..." and then follow that up with "the CSS file has been reduced ... and many graphical elements have been pulled out so pages should load even faster and in that respect usability will have been increased."

Why all the focus on usability being page weight/download speed and the use of graphics/CSS? I bet if you actually tested it, you wouldn't see a single user indicating that the graphics at the top impacted usability...

There's a lot of pro-CSS stuff going on and of course CSS (done right) makes for lighter pages. Great, but you can still have usability problems that CSS can't fix. Example: http://www.htmldog.com/guides/htmlbeginner/ Why isn't the "HTML Beginner" nav item on the left side highlighted somehow to indicate to the user "you are here?" Basic usability problem. And when I click on "HTML Beginner" why doesn't the breadcrumb read: "You are here: Home / Guides / HTML Beginner"?

I don't mean to rip on your site in any way, shape, or form. Far from it - this site is one of the tops in my Bookmarks list. But usability goes *way* beyond the judicious use of images and accessible markup.

So said Bill Pawlak on Thursday 4 March, 2004 at 12:06AM GMT.

Comment 10

Bill,

I agree that usability is much more than graphics and light page weight. These are just examples of where I feel I have improved or hindered usability in comparison to the original design. I could go over every usability aspect I can think of and analyse them in detail but then this entry would be 1000 times longer.

The you-are-here-jobbo on the HTML Beginner's Guide home page reads 'Home / Guides' because that's where the page is in the site structure. The pages within that guide then read 'Home / Guides / HTML Beginner'. I agree about the 'you are here' indicator on the navigation though. I should do something about that....

So said Patrick on Thursday 4 March, 2004 at 10:01AM GMT.

Comment 11

Going back to useit.com again. Ok, I can take a point that site does not need very clear and pronaunced navigation. Still, having alertbox as
hot spot some effor could be made to make it more readable. Thereis almost no space between lines and that blue bold, blue bold underlined, black bold stuff...

So said handylogos on Friday 17 September, 2004 at 3:36PM GMT.

Comment 12

I started to think that maybe I was wrong about useit.com so I went on over there and played around. I think it's really usable. It isn't your average website with navigation column, which to one extent is bad usability-wise. "Users spend more time on other sites than on your site" is something he has said, suggesting that trying to do something different than the norm is detrimenal to usability.

So said Bulgarien Immobilien on Friday 17 September, 2004 at 3:37PM GMT.

Comment 13

Anyway,Hot Banana has been built to easily accommodate a redesign of your web site. In fact, the majority of cgk’s designs are actually redesigns. A redesign may involve a translation of your corporate brand online as the online experience must be consistent with the offline.

So said google163 on Saturday 9 October, 2004 at 5:36PM GMT.

Comment 14

Glad to hear that there are those that do highly regard Nielsen.

When I first became interested in usability, a bought a couple of Nielsen's books and was thoroughly interested. When I started blogging, though, it was clear that many have been turned off by his all or nothing (or, none-or-nothing) approach to Web development. I'm sure many of you have seen the satirical "Jakob Nielsen" sections of a page which purposefully follow his advice.

Like some of the previous commentors have said - you'll probably not regret any effort to heighten the usability of a design.

So said Paul Larson on Tuesday 21 December, 2004 at 1:25AM GMT.

Comment 15

The question is who are those professionals? Information architects, designers, programmers, marketeers? And who decides? And are they only to apply JN's usability rules? If it is JN who decides who is a specialist, designers are not on the list it seems. The fact that JN has convinced so many people to take him seriously as a usability speciaist (which is great in many ways) raises questions about why JN does not acknowledge web designers as web design specialists?

So said [Anon] on Sunday 27 March, 2005 at 3:10AM GMT.

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