templatedata

Links. They make the interwebs work. So it's imperative you get them right. There is an art to it.

There's been a lot of talk about accessibility lately in some parts of the Uni web community, including a presentation by Dan and Nick at the last Web Forum. I was thus very pleased to find this video (via Partial Recall) produced by the Yahoo User Interface people. It features Victor Tsaran, an engineer at Yahoo who is blind, demonstrating a screen reader. It runs for 27 minutes but is worth a look.

The Web Style Guide, is a wonderful source of comprehensively general information for all things oriented around the website development process.

It's a great reference for those new to the world of web / multimedia design and development, as the site takes a very no nonsense approach in explaining the processes and the basics, with extremely user friendly English.

Do you have any resourceful links to share?

The good people at A List Apart have produced a Primer for those new to their site. Even if you're familiar with the site, it's worth taking a look.

If you’re going to build a house—or a website—you need the right tools. A List Apart offers hundreds of articles on design, markup, style, accessibility, usability, and more. We’ve selected a few that you might want to start with. (Think of this guide as one of those reassuring brochures from Lowe’s or Home Depot, but about websites instead of ceramic tile.)

An interesting article in today's SMH: Australian banks 'fail' in online mission. Finally, someone is getting it. If your website is difficult to use it doesn't matter how much you try to push people to work online, they will avoid it whenever possible.

The analysis of four large Australian banks focussed on finding information rather than the online banking applications.

To test out the sites, reviewers acted on advice from each of the banks that researching home loans and credit card deals were the top two reasons for visits to public areas on their websites. However when they set about the task of finding out about these products on each of the sites, they encountered some serious obstacles.

It seems that the basic task of information delivery was where the banks failed.

The study, conducted by US research group Forrester, found that illegible text, poor layouts and missing information were just some of the major design flaws that forced customers to turn to more expensive call centres and branches, or even to seek out alternative offerings from competitors.

"Each of the major banks could save more than $7 million a year by making their sites easier to use," the researcher said.

Now, that's money that talks.

I honestly don't know how long this has been around so it might be old hat. Anyway, UX Mag is worth a look if you are interested in the 'user experience.'

Ok, it's a bit too clever by half sometimes but still, there is stuff there worth reading. I particularly enjoyed the piece Design 101 for programmers.

I have been blessed with working with wonderful techies in my time at the Uni. Generally they have always listened to me, even when I was being more than demanding, and tried to implement what I asked for. They never treated me like an idiot and always accepted that sometimes the interface was beyond them. More than that, they were willing to learn about interfaces. Now I'm not working with them, I miss them. Sniff.

(I also like the treatment of links to stories on UX Mag - much less room for mistakes when the whole box containing the title is a link. Nice).

This guy reckons Google's search interface could do with some tweaking so he's had a go at redesigning it. Considering it's the top search engine, emulated everywhere, his arguments are interesting.

So how did Google get to the top with such a bad page interface? Well, Google succeed for a few reasons. First and foremost, the search page is very simple. As I observed in another recent article, simple things done poorly are much easier to swallow than complex things done poorly. For instance, eBay's design sin is far more substantial and consequential than Google's. Also, Google did it right; they have built a strong reputation on delivering an excellent product. Their brand commands respect, so a small and simple page that otherwise works can be forgiven for what it lacks in usability and aesthetics. Up to a point.

If you don't want to read the article, just take a look at his redesigned Google.

Via Martin Hardee.

--------

John Allsop's paper on the state of Australian web development is work a look.

In a way, I found the results somewhat depressing. I had expected quite a bit better, to be frank.

In terms of validation, structural and semantic HTML and accessibility, there is little evidence that the significant majority of sites are doing things any differently than half a decade ago.

But on reflection, if we had done this survey or five years ago, we would have found little if any CSS, few if any doctype declarations, even fewer alt attributes, even more use of images for text.

He doesn't look at any education websites, so we escaped scrutiny.

--------

Karine at collegewebeditor is posting some superb round-ups of speakers at the HighEdWebDev conference currently underway in the US. Of particular interest:

• Steve Krug on usability in college and university websites


• Daniel M. Frommelt on rebuilding your higher ed website with XHTML and CSS to comply with web standards

--------

A nice little post about usability testing of tabs in Firefox:

Here at Google, we did some usability studies on the tabbed browsing feature. Our usability analyst designed a study to see how well people responded to tabs and how easily they were able to switch between them and close them.

One of the things they are experimenting with is putting close buttons on each tab. Safari already does this and I have to agree, it's a much better way of handling tabs, rather than having the one close button on the right, distanced from the tabs themselves.

--------

• Jakob Nielsen on the top 10 usability mistakes of weblogs.
• McAfee taker a user-focussed approach to designing their UI and cut support calls by 90 per cent.
• Should we stop using CSS hacks now?

--------

Via iaslash, Expero Inc is offering free usability advice via a blog. Although I don't think there are quick fixes for a lot of usability problems, it may help to set people on the right track.

--------

Promotional email using 'rich' techniques such as html and flash has always been a minefield. Not everyone agrees that it is the best way to reach potential students or clients, but like it or not, it's not going away. Just subscribe to any commercial newsletter service and you will find that the days of text-only promotional emails are well and truly over. This is despite the fact that many email programs, both stand-alon and online, don't actually download all parts of such emails automatically.

Sitepoint is offering a few tips to navigate this highly contentious area: Rich media email best practices. It focusses on Flash but offers much to think about for anyone considering or already sending emails that go beyond the text.

--------

The latest issue of Witchita State University's Usability News includes items on the effect of line length and multiple columns on online reading. Anybody know of anyone at Sydney doing similar academic work that may be of use to those of us general staff who work in the field of web dev?

--------

Just on the very rare chance that you haven't heard of these: Seven screen reader usability tips.

• Use descriptive headings
• Write descriptive link text
• Provide information in lists
• Employ logical linearisation
• Apply short, succinct ALT text
• Write short, front-loaded paragraphs
• Write descriptive page title

These things are good practices to ALWAYS use, not just in regard to screenreaders. You have no more excuses.

--------

Gerry McGovern has written a short piece on how web users tend to ignore everything that is not directly related to the task at hand. People visit web sites with a particular task in mind and it is difficult to try to distract them from this task by giving them information or marketing guff not directly related to this task. Hence, traditional advertising methods don't have as much resonance on the web, grab-lines and blurbs have much less impact and in fact can annoy people. As McGovern says, user recall is diminished greatly when information is presented on a screen.

I think this is useful for those trying to design websites to recruit students. Although the traditional way to attract them would be to tell them about all the wonderul reasons they should choose your University, all the attractions of the city in which it resides etc. The reality is though that they are after a certain set of information to complete a set of tasks. The best advertisement you can give them is to enable them to find information easily and not bother them with fluff.

--------

Thanks to Mark Nearhos for directing us to a paper given by Dey Alexander at the recent Ausweb conference: How usable are university websites?: a report on a study of the prospective student experience.

--------

Browsershots is

an open-source system for distributed automatic production of browser screenshots.

It's free. Use it to test your designs. It's in beta stage. Got that?

--------

It's called computer rage and Kent Norman from the University of Maryland has assembled a series of clips showing how to destroy various parts of your computer, should the rage become all too much. 'Torching your monitor' includes a wonderful soundtrack from Norman's son: "Dad, do it again!"

--------

The University of Sheffield has put together a site that provides guidance with creating accessible multimedia for e-learning. They say:

This is not a site full of accessibility guidelines! We want it to be a place where good ideas can be shared, where problems can be identified and discussed, and where the potential of multimedia to make the learning experience accessible to as many people as possible can be realised.

--------

I have plenty of stuff that does a lot but I don't always use all the features. In fact, sometimes I don't even know how to use it at all. Take my DVD player for example...anyway, this is probably not going to apply to the geeks in our midst but there is this thing called featuritis: sometimes the true art is in knowing when to stop.

What if instead of adding new features, a company concentrated on making the service or product much easier to use? Or making it much easier to access the advanced features it already has, but that few can master? Maybe what they lose in market share in one area will be more than compensated for in another area. In a lot of markets, it's gotten so bad out there that simply being usable is enough to make a product truly remarkable.

Indeed. All the bells and whistles in the world are not going to change the fact that you can't find your exam results...

--------

We've all been there. Surely it can be done and still allow people to walk out of the room with a pulse.

--------

Copywriting is interface design

Copywriting is interface design. Great interfaces are written. If you think every pixel matters then you also need to think every letter matters.

Alertbox turns 10

300,000 words of usability essays have had an impact: online user interfaces are considerably easier to use now than they were in 1995. Many predictions and recommendations have come true, though the full Alertbox vision is far from realized.

A few tips on estimating web projects

Today I want to talk about how to estimate projects and ensure that your estimates work for you as well as your clients. I�ve found this can be really tricky and if not done correctly can cause real headaches down the road. A proper scope assessment is key to the success and smooth going of any Web project and the project estimate is a big part of a good scope assessment.

AND

Results of Step Two's intranet teams survey

A little while I posted on one of my pet peeves: non-descriptive link labels. There seems to be some confusion as to whether labelling your links descriptively is good practice in terms of accessibility, specifically in teh case of screen readers. I can confirm that it is good practice. The W3C in their Accessibility Guidelines includes the following:

Good link text should not be overly general; don't use "click here." Not only is this phrase device-dependent (it implies a pointing device) it says nothing about what is to be found if the link if followed. Instead of "click here", link text should indicate the nature of the link target, as in "more information about sea lions" or "text-only version of this page". Note that for the latter case (and other format- or language-specific documents), content developers are encouraged to use content negotiation instead, so that users who prefer text versions will have them served automatically.

In addition to clear link text, content developers may specify a value of the "title" attribute that clearly and accurately describes the target of the link.

If more than one link on a page shares the same link text, all those links should point to the same resource. Such consistency will help page design as well as accessibility.

If two or more links refer to different targets but share the same link text, distinguish the links by specifying a different value for the "title" attribute of each A element.

"Auditory users" -- people who are blind, have difficulty seeing, or who are using devices with small or no displays -- are unable to scan the page quickly with their eyes. To get an overview of a page or to quickly find a link, these users will often tab from one link to the next or review a list of available links on a page.

Thus, for a series of related links, include introductory information in the first link, then distinguishing information in the links that follow. This will provide context information for users reading them in sequence.

So, no 'Click heres' and no URLs used as labels, especially when separated from the target name by several lines.

Thank you.

--------

Jakob Nielsen discusses when to use formal usability reports and when quick findings are just as useful.

Formal reports are the most common way of documenting usability studies, but informal reports are faster to produce and are often a better choice.

--------

As well as badly labelled links, another thing that gets my blood boiling is the poorly designed URL. (Sometimes called a URI). I think sometimes front end designers and techies forget that people actually use URLs. Any marketing person worth their while will tell you that the URL is a key part of their marketing strategies. URLs are printed on brochures, they are spoken about, printed on the side of buses and used as a kind of shorthand. This doesn't only apply to the top level of the site (eg usyd.edu.au) it also applies to subsets of a site. In fact, this is where it is most critical.

An example from the main University site:

In the old days the Faculty Handbooks used to be at a URL that was long and consisted of parts that seemed to have no relevance to the whole. The parts meant something to the people who looked after the website, but no one else. Now the Handbooks are located at http://www.usyd.edu.au/handbooks. Simple.

Another argument that often comes up is the before or after conundrum. Do you label a subset before the main domain or after it? I lean definitely towards the after version. Reasons?If someone gets the 'after' bit wrong they will at least make it to the main site and can find their way from there

Also, convention. Most 'big brand' sites use the after method. It has become accepted and has changed the way people think about URLs. The ABC is a good example. Their theory is ABC/subset of ABC. All the user has to remember is that convention. It has now become a way of thinking about all URLs that are subsets.

Another tip to keep in mind is to use directories rather than filenames for URLs that are going to highly publicised. Filenames require the user to remember the type of file and that pesky extension bit after the dot doesn't really mean much to most people. Hence, the Handbooks are at http://www.usyd.edu.au/handbooks and not http://www.usyd.edu.au/handbooks.shtml

If you want more advice about constructing your URLs read Drew McLennan's thoughts on the matter.

--------

Please, I beg you, give your links proper names. They deserve it.

What do I mean by proper names? I mean names that indicate what lies beyond the link. If a user looks at a page with 15 links on it, all labelled 'click here', they find it difficult to know where to go. This is especially the case if they are scanning the page looking for the correct path to follow. So, no more 'Click here' please. Be a little more creative in the way you label your links and your users will thank you for it.

Also, try not to use URLs as link lables. Use real words. Real words that accurately and succinctly describe what they link to. URLs don't mean anything to anyone but words do.

Another tip for labelling links: if the link is going to open a non-HTML document please, for the love of ***, tell the user what they are going to get. If it is a PDF document, tell them. If it's a Word document, an Excel document or a Powerpoint doc, tell them. Sometimes users don't want to open non-HTML documents. By the time they realise a link is leading to such a doc it is too late to press the stop button and go back. Acrobat or Word or whatever is cranking itself up and trying valiantly to open up its document. Please be kind and provide a little warning. Your audience doesn't like surprises.

An example of both the above tips (these links don't actually work, they're for illustration only):

You are loading an application form onto the web. It is in PDF format.

DON'T

Click here http;//www.usyd.edu.au/department/applicationform.pdf for the application form

Click here for the 2005 application form.

Click here for the 2005 application form (PDF).

DO

2005 application form (PDF).

--------

Via the CHI-WEB mailing list, a summary of resources for those interested in, or currently designing websites for kids. This summary was gathered by Susan Tropeano from Clearuse.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alertbox 04/2002 (J. Neilsen)

Summary available

"Even though participants in our study were very young, they often had the greatest success using websites intended for adults. Sites such as Amazon and Yahoo! are committed to utter simplicity and compliance with Web design conventions, and have become so easy to use that they support little kids very well. "

"Also, kids are keenly aware of their age and differentiate sharply between material that is appropriate for them and material for older or younger kids, however close in age they might be. At one website, a six-year-old said, "This website is for babies, maybe four or five years old. You can tell because of the cartoons and trains."

"Out of sight is out of mind. Most younger kids don't understand about page scrolling, so be sure that your most important site information is visible without scrolling. If kids can't see an element or link without scrolling the page, then they may never see it at all. "

Animation and sound effects were positive design elements for children; they often created a good first impression that encouraged users to stay with a site.

Children were willing to "mine-sweep," scrubbing the screen with the mouse either to find clickable areas or simply to enjoy the sound effects that different screen elements played.

Geographic navigation metaphors worked: Kids liked the pictures of rooms, villages, 3D maps, or other simulated environments that served as an overview and entry point to various site or subsite features.

Children rarely scrolled pages and mainly interacted with information that was visible above the fold. (We also observed this behavior among adult Web users in 1994, but our more recent studies show that adults now tend to scroll Web pages.)

Half of our young users were willing to read instructions; indeed, they often preferred to read a paragraph or so of instructions before starting a new game.

==============

Whitepaper: Kids Usability Testing - What We Learned

"While the lack of instructions or clear labeling and the unfamiliar interface might deter adults from even getting started, by and large the children’s natural curiosity led them to dive right in. By dragging things to different places and clicking everywhere, they quickly figured out how it all worked. "

===============

Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland

Many related papers including one particularly pertinent:

"Young Children’s Search Strategies and Construction of Search Queries" -Allison Druin and others.

- "While the use of text is not an issue for older children and adults,young children (4-7 years of age), have difficulty when it comes to typing skills, spelling, and syntax comprehension."

- "...children’s searches became more efficient with each subsequent item, indicating a practice effect."

- "So, for the most part, children successfully employed a strategy of trying to find each target animal in as few steps as possible, in an extremely focused and goal-directed manner."

- very interesting information about "scaffolding" - "the display of "in-progress" search results on the same screen, while the search query is being formulated, makes it extremely easy for children to see whether their queries have been formulated correctly or not, and to adjust and modify their queries when needed."

===============

Kids prize Web Simplicity, reject complex interfacesLarry Magid The Mercury News

"Like adults, kids want to be able to find information quickly and easily. It may come as a surprise to some children's Web site developers who like to use odd colors and weird type faces that kids want sites with text that is legible and easy to read. "

" Even young children have invested considerable time learning to use standard navigational tools. Why not take advantage of that learning instead of baffling the kids by overly creative (i.e. non-standard) interfaces?"

" In other words, a bit of non-gratuitous sizzle is OK, as long as it helps lead to child in the direction of the content."

===============

When Kids Use the Web

"The weight of empirical evidence to date clearly favors the conclusion that the [BACK] button is an integral element in Web navigation."

"However, we observed that "knowing what to try next" may be less important than simply trying something different. "

" We have encountered widespread speculation among design professionals that visually rich graphical presentation is a vital element in capturing and holding the attention of younger users. Yet prior research suggests a minimal relationship between graphical elements and either search success [10] or site traffic [1]."

"The implications of this finding are twofold. The designers of the Disney site have succeeded in creating a visually compelling environment, complete with professional-quality graphics, splash-screens, and ubiquitous animation, all of which presumably contribute to the childrens' overall assessment of Disney as more fun to use. Yet our results suggest that task-related variables (such as question complexity) are more important than specific interface elements in determining the success of children's information-seeking efforts."

================

American Library Association Great Websites for Kids

The text should be easy to read, and not cluttered with distracting graphics, fonts, and backgrounds.

================

Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County

Wrote book "Weaving a Library Web: A Guide to Developing Children's Websites"

-separate interfaces for "kids" and "teens"

-very small body, textual left nav remains.

-Homework Help - largely textual

-for teens - excellent site!

================

Some interesting websites to consider:

International Children's Digital Library

Search tools on front page - options for kids 3-13

Barley Sheaf School

- narrow format, clear labels, colorful graphics

Library at Casis Elementary School

The Resource Centre at Palmerston District Primary School

Room graphic/comfort zone -

Ask Jeeves for Kids

uses a stack of books similar to the one Sue Hardy likes, as a left nav bar.

Click on World Atlas - slow to load.

================

"Designing a Digital Library for Young Children: An Intergenerational Partnership"

An interesting paper about using children to help you produce a design for children. Holds the very popular belief that adults (including teachers and parents) are not good representatives of what will work for children.

================

THE SCHOOL LIBRARY AS INFORMATION PROVIDER: THE HOME PAGE

Dr. Laurel A. Clyde, Library and Information Science Department, Univ of Iceland

This is an older information site focused on school library websites. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated since 1997. However, Dr. Clyde has another site

that has more recent information, including school library best practices, school libraries online directory, and school library award program.

================

The January 2005 issue of Communications of the ACM will include a special section focused on "Interaction Design and Children".

Description of coming next month on Page 22, Dec 2004/Vol 47, No 12.

================

Large, Andrew, et al. "Design Criteria for Children's Web Portals: The Users Speak Out," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 53(2):79-94, 2002.

================

There was extensive research conducted on how Danish school children use the Web as part of a project to build a library search interface. A test version of the English language version of the search product that resulted from that research.

Your browser will need a Macromedia Flash plugin for the software to work.

================

Educause 2004 Presentation called "Educating the Net Generation".

================

Christine Borgman on children's use of a Dewey-based online library catalog of science materials. A couple papers were published in the ASIS bulletin. This is her papers list, just look for "sciencelibrary"

:

================

Some quantitative data from Nielsen//Netratings:

that can be of some interest to you. Other links:

================

================

Here are some papers that might interest you:

Creating Online Galleries of Information for K-12 Audiences

Having fun or finding information? Usability for kids sections of Web sites

Making Web Sites for Young Audiences

================

Susan Tropeano

Improving Internet Content, One Website at a Time

Planning a usable website: a three-step guide by Trenton Moss

1. Work out your site visitors' immediate needs2. Create an information flow3. Usability testing

(With thanks to Column Two).

Please make me think: potential dangers in usability culture

Should you, as a designer, be bound by some ethical mantra to make your work deeper, more thoughtful and complex, not aimed for the lowest common denominator of your user base?

A San Francisco bookstore that is allowing its books to be arranged according to colour. Someone has posted some photos, if you'd like to take a peek.

--------

A lucky dip of links this evening (one day I'll get around to actually writing an opinion here...):

- James Robertson's CM briefing for this month is online: Scoping an intranet release.

- A draft chapter from Edward Tufte's new book is online and open for comment. Not familiar with Tufte? He's an expert in information design, from books, to signs to maps to...you get the picture. If you look at only one of his books, make it Envisioning Information.

- Build a simple style switcher in CSS. Allows users to view your site they way they want. Not sure if this is a good thing or not. Anyway, the CSS tip might be useful for something.

- Functionality is dead says AMR research:

The Issue: The name of the game in the 1990s was functionality and technology. The new game is ease of use and accessibility.

A client recently asked me to survey its customer base about what these customers consider of most value. We assumed that it would be some combination of functional and technological superiority. We couldn’t have been more wrong:

* “Ease of use, ease of use, ease of use,” said one interviewee.
* “Simple to use and low cost of implementation,” said another.
* “No training and the package is very accessible,” said a third.

--------

I am just assuming y'all like reading as much as I do so...another collection of good stuff to read:

- What is usability? from Donna Maurer at Step Two.

- How to write effective headings and summaries for your site. We know people don't read as thoroughly on the web as they do in print, so how do you suck them in? Gerry McGovern has a few ideas.

- Sometimes it is difficult to communicate the positive or negative experience users are having with a site. Robert Rubinoff has outlines a method that helps to remove subjectivity and bias from a user experience analysis. It's not te whole answer but it is definitely a step towards making user experience analysis bullet-proof.

--------

Doing the hard yards to make your site accessible has multiple 'secret' benefits, according to Trenton Moss, over at Sitepoint. As well as better usability:

Web accessibility has so many benefits that I really do wonder why such a large number of Websites have such diabolically bad accessibility. One of the main benefits is increased usability, which, according to usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, can increase the sales/conversion rate of a Website by 100%, and traffic by 150%.

One of the main benefits of Web accessibility is that a Website that's more accessible to people is also usually more accessible to search engines. The more accessible your site is to search engines, the more confidently they can guess what the site's about, giving your site a better chance at the top spot in the search engine rankings.

--------

- Cornell are discussing their web redesign project on a blog. Think it would ever work here? Nah...

- 10 CSS tricks you may not know

- Usability isn't only about the front end, sexy, 'beautifying' work, it's also about the back end. Some things you can do to ensure server side usability.

- Instead of using 'Click here' why not give it a proper name? Now you too can write effective link text. Your users will love you for it.

- Having an office argument about grammar? Solve the problem quickly by sending out some spam email requesting an answer. That's what some English teachers in Hong Kong did.

For all those struggling to come to terms with the weekend's events, feel comforted in the knowledge that you are not alone. For all those over the moon at the weekend's events, I don't want to know who you are...

So, straight down to business with a couple of links:

- Cheap and cheerful usability testing
Sitepoint explains why you don't need to build a whizz-bang usability lab in order to achieve quality testing. Obviously very pertinent for us at the Uni.

- Layout of search results
Via Column Two, an article on the optimal layout of search result pages by Henrik Olsen. He says:

The authors of this article have studied the optimal layout of search result pages. Their findings suggest that categorizing search results improve users' performance significantly.

--------