Sorry, dear reader, I just couldn’t resist the pun. Actually, though, even Home pages need to be examined for usability and that’s exactly what happens in the eye-opening book by Jacob Neilsen & Marie Tahir called “Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed.” This book reminds me of the many happy hours I’ve spent in the past 10 years trying to explain usability to people who have never realized there is such a topic. Some of these people really get it and then they are over-joyed to find there are usability professionals they can use when trying to figure out what to do with their website or their widget (oops, can’t use that term any more for a generic whatcha-ma-call-it!).
Jacob Neilsen and Donald Norman (my hero, author of “The Design of Everyday Things”) first brought to popular attention among web designers that users of a website need to be able to find the site easy to use for the task they are using it for. If I’m buying a book I need a big “buy it now” signal somewhere that I know to click on to “buy it now.” But usability is a bit more tricky than just a button. In fact, it’s so complicated to know if a site is truly usable that a formal evaluation process with a laboratory has been developed and many companies spend enormous amounts of money testing the usability of things like the instruction sheet for setting up your new computer. Take it out of the box. There should be 5 items in the box: the computer, the power cable, the instruction manual, the quick-start guide, and the very large-print 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper with more bolded black instructions about how to contact customer support, the help line, or the additional, special website where there is a video of how to actually get the computer out of the box. But, I digress. Back to usability and Donald Norman.
Did you ever wonder why doors open certain directions? Or why some firetrucks are yellow instead of red? Or why you just hate the ABC company’s website when you are forced to use it even though you’d rather have a root canal but your boss won’t let you? Well, design is what determines usability. And Norman (his last name) clues us in that doors open with handles at a certain height because that is “easy” for the average person to do it. Maybe not a basketball player in the seven foot range, but you and average Joe who’s headed toward the door right now. Did you see him push on the lever that goes all the way across the door right about elbow height to release the latch and open the door outward since that is the natural direction he is pushing? Before designers worried about usability some doors didn’t operate that well – but gradually, explains Norman, thru a few iterations, the door became more usable. And so will most other things as long as there is motivation to create more usable design, along with the patience to live thru the iterations until the product is darn near “easy” to use.
In the case of the website Home page, I like Steve Krug’s commons sense approach: can a user instantly know “What’s the point of this site?” and “Where Do I Start?” In other words, with a very quick scan, can the user know where he is and what to do next?
And let’s get down to the personal level for making sure you understand who to swear at the next time you are in a toilet cubical and the door swings inward and you have to stand on the toilet to get the door open even though you only weight 135 pounds. You swear at the creator of such a space for not understanding it is barely usable. Then next, say a silent thanks to Jacob Neilsen, Donald Norman, Steve Krug, New Riders’ “Voices that Matter” book series, Kelly Goto, Jesse James Garrett, O’Reilly Media, and a host of others who are diligently out there, making sure usability is paramount in the design of every man-made creation. Then thank the Creator (whoever, whatever, he/she/it is to your understanding, if there is such a thing) that most of natural creation has some fine, built-in usability, like green grass and blue sky which is easy on the eyes. And breathing. Now isn’t that easy?
