Prioritizing Web Usability
The book is not about making beautiful websites. It is about making easy-to-use websites. The authors are experts on running user tests. Their tests show people visit websites for specific goals. Website visitors are very impatient. If a visitor could not find what he wants in a minute or two, he would leave. Designers should therefore make the websites easy to use before anything else.
This book is full of practical advices. Most books stop at listing some web safe fonts; this book recommends Verdana because it is easier to read even in small font size. Most books stops at saying eligibility is important; this book recommends using a font size of point nine or above.
It is a little pity blogs are not touched on, probably because bloggers are unlikely to hire usability experts. Bloggers may read Jakob Nielsen’s on-line article as a supplement: “Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes” (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.ht).
Let’s end by a list of the most hated web design elements, excerpted from Chapter 3:
- Links that do not change colour when visited (except command-oriented functionally)
- Breaking the button button
- Opening new browser windows (except pdf and similar)
- Pop-up windows
- Design elements that look like advertisements
- Violating web-wide conventions
- Vaporous content and empty hype
- Dense Content and unscannable text
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