LAURIE DUDASIK Owner/DesignerDirector of Marketing Web Designer
and Social Media Coordinator
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OVERVIEW 1.What is Usability? 2.The Importance of Navigation
3.General UX (User Experience) Tips 4.Your Home Page vs. Landing
Page 5.Mobile Usability 6.Usability Tests 7.If there is time ---
Some bad examples
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People dont like to puzzle over how to do things. If people who
build a site dont care enough to make things obvious it can erode
confidence in the site and its publishers. USABILITY MEANS A person
of average ability or experience can use it for its intended
purpose without getting hopelessly frustrated.
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Retail Store: 1. Enter Store 2. Look For Department 3. Look For
Aisle 4. Look for Product 5. Find it? If No = frustration 6. start
over or ask for help If Yes = Look for cashier, leave happy Online:
Your customers (users) will either search or browse NAVIGATION IS
YOUR WEBSITE No mystery-meat navigation, please
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ONLINE BROWSING No sense of scale. Even after weve used a
website extensively, were still not certain just how big it is. 50
pages? 1,000? 17,000? For all we know there could be huge corners
weve never explored. No sense of direction. In a website, theres no
left and right, no up and down. We may talk about moving up and
down, but we mean up and down in the hierarchy to a more general or
more specific level. No sense of location. In physical spaces, as
we move around we accumulate knowledge about the space. We develop
a sense of where things are and take shortcuts to get to them.
Sensory underload?
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DESIGN TIP #1 Navigation should be on EVERY page --- 1
exception: forms --- Site ID should be on EVERY page --- no
exceptions --- This is the logo or title of the website, usually in
the upper left corner Site ID acts as your users reset button This
site Sections of this site Subsections Sub-subsections, etc. This
page Areas of this page Items on this page Effective visual
hierarchies!
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DESIGN TIP #2 Dont confuse your main navigation with Utilities
Utilities can include: Archives Checkout Contact Us Downloads Help
How to Shop Jobs/Careers My Account Privacy Policy Press Releases
Store Locator Sign In Shopping Cart Site Map Register Order
Tracking Directory Investor Relations As a general rule, only 4 or
5 utilities that YOUR users most often need should be placed into
your main/top navigation From NM Dept. of Health
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HOW TO TEST FOR A WELL DESIGNED WEBSITE What site is this?
(Site ID) What page am I on? (Page Name) What are the major
sections of this site? (Sections) What are my options at this
level? (Local Navigation) Where am I in the scheme of things? (You
are Here indicators) How can I search?
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GENERAL UX TIPS 1. Break up pages into clearly defined areas.
Things I can do on this site! Links to the top stories! Products
this company sells! How I can login or sign up!
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GENERAL UX TIPS 2. Make it obvious whats clickable vs.
Carousels are popular right now. But make sure its obvious that
theyre interactive; otherwise they just look like a static image
Affordance: visual clues in a design
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GENERAL UX TIPS 3. Reduce Visual Noise Shouting. Lots of
invitations to buy! Lots of exclamation points! Lots of different
typefaces, bright colors! OMG slideshows! OMG animation! OMG
pop-ups! Disorganization. Dont make your page look like a ransacked
room. Use grids to align the page, please. Clutter. When editing
your web pages, start with the assumption that everything is visual
noise (the presumed guilty until proven innocent approach), and get
rid of anything thats not making a real contribution. In the face
of limited time and attention, everything thats not part of the
solution must go.
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GENERAL UX TIPS 4. Dont pre-determine categories for your users
You want to buy printer supplies. The online shop asks you to
choose between two gateways before continuing: HomeOffice You want
to read an article on a news website: Already a subscriber but not
an online member? Already an online member? Not a member or a
subscriber yet? Enter 6-digit Account Number: Enter Last Name:
Continue Where can I find my account number? Enter E-mail Address:
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THE HOME PAGE Prime real estate and everyone in your company
will want a piece of the canvas Some universities dont have the
full name of the school on the home page xkcd.com
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THE HOME PAGE Think of all the things you may want to put into
your home pages design: Site identity and mission Site hierarchy
Search Teases Content promos Featured promos Timely content Deals
Shortcuts Registration Examples: Show me what Im looking for and
what Im not looking for Show me where to start Establish
credibility and trust
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DESIGN TIP #3 As quickly and clearly as possible, the Home Page
should answer these 4 questions: What is this?What do they have
here?What can I do here? Why should I be here? (and not somewhere
else)
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BUT THE HOME PAGE? REALLY? Its true. Users rarely enter your
site through the home page anymore. Thats so 2004. Because of this,
every page of your site should do as much as it can to orient them
properly: Give them the right idea about who you are, what you do,
& what your site has to offer Remember that the Site ID is the
reset button. Your site ID should navigate back to the home page,
so your home page still has a lot of importance in the full
design
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MOBILE USABILITY One-size-fits-all solutions: aka: Scalable,
dynamic, fluid, adaptive, responsive Your web site should be usable
on ANY size screen. The trend is to move towards this instead of
having a separate mobile version. Mobile devices dont have cursors,
so dont depend on hover features Allow zooming. If youre not using
a responsive design, at least make sure that your site doesnt
resist efforts to view it on a mobile device. xkcd.com
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FLAT DESIGN Clean, open spaces Crisp edges Bright colors
Two-dimensional/flat illustrations AFFORDANCE Strong affordanceNot
so much Submit Tradeoff: A clean, uncluttered look vs. providing
sufficient visual clues Visual clues in an objects design that
suggest how to use it
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REMEMBER YOUR SPEED The neighborhood I am moving into only has
3G, and my boyfriends phone can only connect to the 2G EDGE
network. Be careful that your responsive-design solutions are not
slowing down load-time with huge amounts of code and images that
are larger than necessary for the users screen. Google PageSpeed:
Free. Gives a general score for desktop speed mobile speed user
experience
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EVERYBODY LIKES _____ Everyone of us who works on Web sites
have a one thing in common: We are also Web users. And thus, we
have strong feelings about what we like and dont like about
websites. So. What can we do??
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USABILITY TESTS Usability Tests ARE NOT Focus Groups In a focus
group, a small group of people (5 10) sit around a table and talk
about things, like their opinions about products, their past
experiences with them, or their reactions to new concepts. In a
usability test, you watch one person at a time try to use your
website. You give them typical tasks so you can detect and fix the
things that confuse or frustrate them.
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USABILITY TESTS If you want a great site, you have to test.
Testing one user is 100% better than testing none. Testing one user
early in the project is better than testing 50 at the end
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USABILITY TESTS Can I afford it? There is such a thing as DIY
Usability Testing If you can afford to hire a professional, do it.
Odds are theyll be able to do a better job than you can. But if you
cant hire someone, do it yourself!
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USABILITY TESTS Traditional TestingDIY Testing Time Spent For
Each Round of Testing When do you test? Number of rounds of
testing? Number of participants in each round 1-2 days of tests,
then a week to prepare a briefing or report, followed by some
process to decide what to fix 1 morning/month includes testing,
debriefing, and deciding what to fix. When the site is nearly
complete Continually, throughout the development process Typically
only one or two per project, because of time and expense One every
month Eight or moreThree How do you choose the participants?
Recruit carefully to find people who are like your target audience
Recruit loosely, if necessary. Frequent testing is more important
than testing actual users Where do you test?Off-site, in a rented
facility with an observation room with a one-way mirror On-site,
with observers in a conference room using screen sharing software
to watch Who watches?Full days of off-site testing means not many
people will observe firsthand Half day of on-site testing means
more people can see the tests live ReportingSomeone takes at least
a week to prepare a briefing or write a Big Honkin Report (25-50
pages) A 1-2 page email summarizes decisions made during the teams
debriefing Who identifies the problems? The person running the
tests usually analyzes the results and recommends changes The
entire dev. team and any interested stakeholders meet over lunch
the same day to compare notes. Primary purposeIdentify as many
problems as possible (sometimes hundreds), categorize and
prioritize them by severity Identify the most serious problems and
commit to fixing them before the next round of testing
Out-of-Pocket Costs$5,000 - $10,000 per round if you hire someone
to do it A few hundred dollars or less per round How to Recruit
Participants for Usability Studies:
nngroup.com/reports/tips/recruiting
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USABILITY TESTS Example questions: What strikes you about it?
What you can do here? What is for? Just look around and provide a
narrative of your thoughts. (let them scroll, but not to click on
anything until asked) If you were browsing at your home, what would
you click on first? Can you think of some service you would need
that you could use this site to get help with? Please try to find
the area where you would _______. The questions should flow as the
participant makes comments and changes his or her behavior. Try to
avoid going into the test with too many pre-determined tasks.
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WHO KILLED JFK?
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MIT CENTER FOR ADVANCED VISUAL STUDIES
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DS+R NEW YORK (DESIGN STUDIO)
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TOUCH OF MODERN
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MIMARCH
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DID YOU ENJOY THIS PRESENTATION? If youre interested in
learning more, there can easily be a part 2 to this: Writing
Content for Web Usability Learn how to create useful and usable
content in the form of a conversation. Ill share with you the
strategies, processes, and tactics for creating or revising content
for the web. Slides are available at sandiapixels.com