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CLick here to expand all course descriptionsPosts by Todd Bryant (1) By Todd Bryant, on December 10th, 2012
I had been recommended the book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug a few times in the last few years. After all the chips had fallen and my 20s wound down to an end I found myself as a Creative Director with no creative training. I have an undergrad Biological Anthropology degree and my last Masters was in media research. Yet, along the way I had helped someone with a wordpress site here, edited a video there and in the end became a generalist in enough software packages to be functional enough to guide a research company’s creative direction. I immediately jumped on the chance to read this book and find out its insights on functional website design so I could at least hold my own in conversations with my focus group moderating co-workers. I had seen many sessions, but had never thought of myself as a usability expert like they were. The first thing I noticed was the 2006 copyright. While lolcats may have not changed that much in 6 years I am sure that functional websites have. Maybe I should have read the book when it was released instead of around the time that it needs a new edition. Still common sense hasn’t changed and therefore the approach should be the same. Essentially the book says that people shut their brains down to a low roar and navigate the path of least resistance. What this book hopes to provide is a break down of what those obstacles are that impede the flow of traffic to the end result (often a sale or a relevant article) and showcase web design conventions to facilitate these results. The books begins with many quotes of praise saying that it practices what it preaches by being short and to the point. I argue otherwise. How can a book repeat the same thing over and over again for 200 pages and be considered good. Why make a slew of chapters about different parts of a webpage if your only suggestions/recommendations are to cut down all excess images and text and make things like like their functionality. I feel like these tidbits of advice aren’t so groundbreaking since the advent of web 2.0. People in my generation have embraced large striking photography and minimalist wordings. The current trend is away from verbose blogging to succinct tweeting and image tumbling. I understand that monolithic websites are still used and needed, but anyone making those sites would need more than this book by their side. As a book for general lay people this one is only good for a quick browse over a coffee table, if only to laugh as they reference Yahoo as the major search engine of the web. I had been recommended the book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug a few times in the last few years. After all the chips had fallen and my 20s wound down to an end I found myself as a Creative Director with no creative training. I have […] December 10th, 2012 | Category: Don’t Make Me Think | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
Posts by Alexandra Coym (1) By Alexandra Coym, on September 25th, 2012
This book is a classic for anyone working with web design. Nowadays the mantra for building great websites is “Content is King!”. Nonetheless a solid design and good usability is essential for any website’s success. If Google’s search engine were not so intuitive and straightforward to use, it would not nearly be as successful. When is a website successful you ask? That really depends on your objective and your target audience. If your website is supposed to sell products for example, an easy purchasing process will determine your success. But what is usability exactly? For many people it’s just another of those web-related buzzwords along with user experience, user journey and click path. In it’s essence, usability is how well something can be used. How easily can something be used (by users) to perform certain tasks and achieve specific goals? Most likely each one of us has used a website before. We search through Google, we socialize through Facebook and we shop through Amazon and eBay (I know, I know, not everybody, but you get the picture). We probably have favorites websites that have a slick design or a super cool mouse-over functionality that lets you navigate through 12 levels simultaneously. It is important to distinguish between different kinds of website design. On the web, there are conventions – things that have worked several times before and are therefore quickly adopted by users. But who wants to do what everyone else has already done? Innovation in web design is a slippery slope. If you create an interface that is immediately understood by your users and gets the job done even quicker, great! If not, it’s good to stick to some of the known conventions that will make your task designing a website much easier. For some of these conventions, see here. An example of a website with great usability is www.amazon.com. The complex hierarchy of the products Amazon offers is packed away into several navigations (horizontal bars at the top, left side area with mouse-over) that somehow still manage to let you find what you’re looking for. In addition, Amazon’s most powerful tool, the search, is prominently placed at the top of every page. An example of a website with a poor usability is http://eil.com/. It’s not just the cluttered design and unflattering use of colors, but also for example that the navigation changes completely when you click on something. The most important piece of advice I can give when design for a good usability is put yourself in the user’s position and also always relate to your own experiences as a web user. Think about what works well for you, what feels intuitive and right, where would you click to look for something. This book is a classic for anyone working with web design. Nowadays the mantra for building great websites is “Content is King!”. Nonetheless a solid design and good usability is essential for any website’s success. If Google’s search engine were not so intuitive and straightforward to use, it would not nearly be as successful. When […] September 25th, 2012 | Category: Don’t Make Me Think | 697 comments - (Comments are closed)
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