Assignment Usability

Posted by Edwin Lynch on May 18, 2008 in Communication, Usability

Usability is the study of the ease of using a product. Some products are easier to use than others. A lot of people like Apple Mac software because that company gives usability high priority. The same usability principles can be applied to a website. Websites are often designed conservatively so that users know what to expect and where to expect it when they navigate from page to page. There’s a menu (such as the one on our right) a content area (right here) and a header (above). There’s usually also a footer with copyright, authorship and terms of trade. If a website communicates its message well – you won’t be left wondering what the hell it’s about. It’s why I’ve written “Making Easy to Use Websites Since 1998″ under my business name.

Recently, I had a strange, ironic pleasure. I had to mark a whole bunch of website usability assignments for a unit I teach at Curtin Uni. The assignments were basically briefs for a proposed website. Oh my. Half of the assignments were great reads and even I (with my huge and accommodating mind) learnt a lot ;) . . . But some assignments themselves were just plain hard to use and so had a weird sense of comic irony about them. They wouldn’t open, or they were 1Gb heavy and wouldn’t download due to huge embedded movies and Curtin server file-size limits. In some cases, huge un-prepared images straight out of Dad’s 20 mega-pixel camera were embedded in Word Docs. I had to contact so many students to ask for something usable.

One assignment made no mention of what the proposed website would be for. It was fully researched and beautifully presented, but I had no idea what the subject or even the basic theme was. It could have been a proposal for a product site or equally – a service oriented site. I had no idea. Navigation would be here and the header was to be there. Everything inthe right place. BUT, the entire document was a complete mystery and so it was worthless. The student got a good mark because it was thoroughly researched with lots of cited comments – and at least it opened.

Take this BLOG entry as a word of warning. If your company name is “Generation Solutions” for example – while it may sound grand to yourself and satisfy a seeing the name in print need – nobody will know what you do.

Plus, the over-used and ubiquitous word “solution” these days, to me at least, suggests that your potential client has a problem. It’s almost offensive, but not quite. Read my BLOG about my personal take on the term business solutions. Not very emotionally rational.

So – if you do get a website – please do remember to add “we sell chairs” (or whatever you do) under your company title so people know where they are. It’s the single most important part of your site’s communication.

Plus search engines appreciate your simple tag. ;P