Nov . 21, 2002
Please feel free to invite some of your colleagues from your or another city/county if you think it would benefit them to be part of our group.
Usability Issues
Guest Speaker: Diana Persell, NIC
Good usability makes Web site technology transparent; it allows users to surf without being aware of the technology used to create the site. Usability can be thought of as a road map, ideally there are standards to signage and landmarks.
Usability becomes an issue when a catastrophe occurs. For example, the Florida ballots had a design that was approved, but not tested.
It is difficult to determine usability’s ROI because it isn’t so tangible and if a usability study is done, the problems are solved before launch of a site.
Consistency in navigation and layout is the most important piece of good usability.
The idea that everything has to be a certain number of clicks away isn’t necessarily true as long as the links make sense and the user knows he or she is heading down the right path.
The users whohave never used your site are best for getting feedback.
Other ways to increase usability are using:
- I want to…lists.
- Cross-referencing (use lots of links to highlight related topics inside of text)
- Breadcrumbs, you are here.
- Responsible use of images that are user-tested and justified.
- Information architecture – organizing a site with focus on content, context and the user.
Good example: www.llbean.com, lots of cross-referencing, good grouping of categories.
Bad example: www.brint.com, wall of text.
The “Best of Web” judges often look for:
- Prominent display of online services.
- Sites that facilitate communication.
- Trust and security policies.
Their pet peeves include:
- Excessive graphics.
- Large photos of elected officials.
- Scrolling down on front page. (400 pixels is considered the “fold line” for critical information if designing for the optimal 800x600 screen.)
- Cutesy language.
- Lack of consistency.
Users like “stretchy” pages more than static ones; this also is better for accessibility.
Newspapers and magazines are some of the earliest examples of information architecture; study them for ideas.
Use a sans-serif font; it allows for as little distraction as possible, is easier on the eyes.
The standard for text pages is white background, black text. Other colors may be harder to see, illegible to those with colorblindness and/or may print terribly.
Suggested reading
Practical Information Architecture, Eric
L. Reiss
O’Reilly’s
Information Architecture for the WWW, Louis Rosenfeld (www.louisrosenfeld.com)
Don’t Make me Think, Steve Krug (his site – www.sensible.com)
Diana’s company, NIC, helps government agencies in all areas of Web site development and testing. Feel free to contact her at:
Diana Persell
Director of Creative Design & Portal Architecture
1500 Wakarusa Drive ,
Suite B
Lawrence, KS 66049
(785) 331-2411
Diana@nicusa.com
http://www.nicusa.com/
December Meeting
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), Macromedia Contribute
For December, we will briefly look at Macromedia’s new product, Contribute (http://www.macromedia.com/software/contribute/).
We will also learn how to use Cascading Style Sheets for formatting text.
The meeting will be at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 19, at the MARC offices, 600 Broadway. Some folks usually do lunch after the meeting. Let us know if you’d like to join us.
If you have any ideas for future topics or guest speakers, please share them with Susan Waters, Overland Park (sjwaters@opkansas.org) or send them via the listserv.
SJW