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Overall Rating: 3 | wpawlak@inovdesigns.com on Feb 3, 1999 at 4:48:03 PM | No Rating | Greetings...felt I had to make a statement regarding the feedback this article has generated.
First, thanks for your feedback. Good or bad, it's all useful.
Second, let me try to address some of the issues raised:
1. Article is too short/vague to be of any use.
The article was written _specifically_ to start a discussion regarding web site usability. Think of it as an "Introduction" section of a thesis. The problem I tried to address is that people *don't* think about usability when designing sites. People think about resources, schedules, applets, servers, databases, Netscape vs. IE, etc. That's why so many sites are so bad from a usability perspective. You may "know about" usability, but how often do you allocate development time to evaluating the usability of your design?
#2 No real suggestions/ just scratched the surface.
Yes. No kidding. Usableweb has an entire *website* devoted to the issue of web usability. There are many others out there, too. My goal was not to write the final word in web usability in 2 pages.
If it's seen as a need, I can start addressing specific issues, complete with suggestions for changes based on an evaluation. For example, fixed width tables are useful because people have trouble reading more than 10-12 words along a line of text. Your eyes have a hard time staying "on the line" of text. Serifs on fonts help, but only so much. Why do you think there's multiple columns in newspapers and magazines?
In any case, even if all you do is go check out the sites concerned with usability (and actually use the information), then I've done my job: you've found out "what usability is and why it is so important to web design."
| | Moose on Feb 3, 1999 at 12:41:18 PM | Rating: 4 | | Could have been a little more "meat"? What are some of the methodological steps to work the plan? | | Caliban on Feb 2, 1999 at 2:16:24 PM | Rating: 2 | Reasonably well-written article, but short on content. Specifics would have been nice. I realise it's hard to give people short, concise descriptions of how to increase the usability of their site, but there could have been at least a couple suggestions. I'll offer a couple here, which most pros should already know... but IDHTML isn't just for pros, is it? ;)
One of the obvious ones which I see a lot is dark background images with light text, but defaulting to the standard white or light grey HTML background -- even though your site is readable with the background image loaded, it should be readable instantly. Setting the background to a dark color in this case will make the page readable all the way from first load.
Another consideration might be the very simple factor of how long your page is. On any given page, you should be able to read the first paragraph of text without scrolling; depending on your target audience, scrolling down a long page may or may not (usually not) be acceptable, but people will always want to have a general overview visible immediately... if only to see if scrolling is worth the effort. (Summing up what you intend to talk about in the first paragraph is a good thing.) | | Scott Isaacs on Jan 31, 1999 at 12:59:11 PM | No Rating | Thanks for the usability feedback. This entire design is new and we are still tweaking it.
We just recently switched to fixed with tables in response to feedback. Unfortunately, letting the articles flow to the window width created equally hard to read pages on large-screen monitors. We are considering an approach that lets registered user's choose a target resolution or to let tables automatically grow to the window size.
The new-user process is still being streamlined (I agree on the usability issue, we have technical issues with getting this to work correctly). Once you are registered, everything should work as you expect - logging on from any of the pages will leave you on the same page. | | cwodtke on Jan 30, 1999 at 9:06:02 PM | Rating: 1 | Hard to take an article on usability seriously when i have to scroll left and right to read it. Come one people, fixed width tables? it's not like you have any kind of layou to protect. Why not hire the usabilty guy to help you on your redesign... hard to take him seriously when the usability of the site ws so low.
I had to sign up to comment on the article, and by the time I had and got my confirmation page, there was no way for me to return to where I was when I was asked to sign up, and I had to returnto the homepage to find my way back.
On top of it all, it was for an article that held no useful content. If you really want to know about usability (and you should)try http://www.usableweb.com/
Learn something! | | DaveRussell on Jan 28, 1999 at 8:12:53 AM | Rating: 1 | | Focus on Usability is great, but some specifics would have been nice. Much too short and vague to be any use. | | Lothar on Jan 27, 1999 at 1:44:14 AM | Rating: 1 | | this article has only scratched the surface. It's way too short to be of any practical use. | | jsnook on Jan 26, 1999 at 10:44:54 AM | Rating: 2 | | The article was well written but took two pages to say, "You should be concerned about the usability of your site." | | TSoho on Jan 26, 1999 at 10:35:25 AM | Rating: 3 | More suited to those friends of mine who are aspiring to be web developers. Much of this article they really need to read, although anyone who does web development professionally already knows this stuff.
Well written. | | startrek on Jan 23, 1999 at 11:57:56 AM | Rating: 3 | | Nothing great, but the kind of articles I like | | DanielDocekal on Jan 22, 1999 at 12:23:49 PM | Rating: 1 | | Is this really an article? I haven't found anything to read. Just had to skip two pages of empty words :( | | erikmk on Jan 21, 1999 at 1:06:06 PM | Rating: 2 | | GUZZOMATT on Jan 20, 1999 at 5:00:51 PM | Rating: 4 |
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