Steve Krug started off by defining usability. A nice quote from his wife: "If something is hard to use, I just don't use it as much."
Make everything you publish on the web as self-evident as you can. Users should know what is important and unimportant (although he questioned why the unimportant stuff is there to begin with) I question this as well.
Biggest problem in web design: Disparity between what we think people are doing and what they really do. We design as though they're going to read most of what's on the page. The truth is they don't read--they look for clickable half-matches to what they are looking for.
Omit words. "Delete half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left."
Make your text scannable. This is what people are doing most of the time.
--Headings; sub-headings; bullet lists; highlighting key words (in paragraphs)
Steve showed a page from the undergraduate course bulletin. He used it as an example of a page with too much text. He showed a reformatted version of the page with the content broken into paragraphs, with bolded text, etc...
Why it sucks to be us: (web developers in higher ed)
--Corporate expectations on a non-profit budget.
--Stakeholders can be petty and whiny
--Finding and implementing a cms in your spare time, and herding kittens into using it
--Subsite/fiefdom hell (every Department wants its own look/feel)
--Multiple audiences and many disparate databases
Home Page Death Match! (love this)
--Tons of dynamic content of variable quality and enormous importance (to its creators)
--Steve likened web 2.0 technologies to the previous need for Flash on web sites (YES!)
--Consensus decision making
Steve's Recommendations for Penn State:
--Read his book. :)
--Focus on navigation. Impeccable navigation. Break nav down into short lists.
Search is often not as good a way to get people to stauff as navigation.
--Unsubtle "you are here" indicators (breadcrumbs)
--Big page titles that match page text.
Steve said the PSU homepage menu was TOO LONG. Prospective students page--left sidebar list of links is also too long.
Steve noted that he could not find a higher ed site that said in 20 words or less why this was a great place to go to school. Who are you? Where are you? Is this something we need to think about for the Libraries site? Quantifying what the library is and what is held there in a few simple words (and perhaps dare I suggest, an image.) Steve says home pages are for first-time visitors but this is not true (at least I don't think it is) for the Libraries home page.)
--Fix the serious problems uncovered by usability testing.
--For each round of user testing, fix the three most serious problems.
--Try to do usability testing one morning a month.
--Watch the tests live. (Set up a monitor in another room so that others can observe.)
--Over lunch, compare notes with team and decide what to do to fix issues identified in that morning's testing.
Off to another session with Steve on conducting usability testing!
Make everything you publish on the web as self-evident as you can. Users should know what is important and unimportant (although he questioned why the unimportant stuff is there to begin with) I question this as well.
Biggest problem in web design: Disparity between what we think people are doing and what they really do. We design as though they're going to read most of what's on the page. The truth is they don't read--they look for clickable half-matches to what they are looking for.
Omit words. "Delete half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what's left."
Make your text scannable. This is what people are doing most of the time.
--Headings; sub-headings; bullet lists; highlighting key words (in paragraphs)
Steve showed a page from the undergraduate course bulletin. He used it as an example of a page with too much text. He showed a reformatted version of the page with the content broken into paragraphs, with bolded text, etc...
Why it sucks to be us: (web developers in higher ed)
--Corporate expectations on a non-profit budget.
--Stakeholders can be petty and whiny
--Finding and implementing a cms in your spare time, and herding kittens into using it
--Subsite/fiefdom hell (every Department wants its own look/feel)
--Multiple audiences and many disparate databases
Home Page Death Match! (love this)
--Tons of dynamic content of variable quality and enormous importance (to its creators)
--Steve likened web 2.0 technologies to the previous need for Flash on web sites (YES!)
--Consensus decision making
Steve's Recommendations for Penn State:
--Read his book. :)
--Focus on navigation. Impeccable navigation. Break nav down into short lists.
Search is often not as good a way to get people to stauff as navigation.
--Unsubtle "you are here" indicators (breadcrumbs)
--Big page titles that match page text.
Steve said the PSU homepage menu was TOO LONG. Prospective students page--left sidebar list of links is also too long.
Steve noted that he could not find a higher ed site that said in 20 words or less why this was a great place to go to school. Who are you? Where are you? Is this something we need to think about for the Libraries site? Quantifying what the library is and what is held there in a few simple words (and perhaps dare I suggest, an image.) Steve says home pages are for first-time visitors but this is not true (at least I don't think it is) for the Libraries home page.)
--Fix the serious problems uncovered by usability testing.
--For each round of user testing, fix the three most serious problems.
--Try to do usability testing one morning a month.
--Watch the tests live. (Set up a monitor in another room so that others can observe.)
--Over lunch, compare notes with team and decide what to do to fix issues identified in that morning's testing.
Off to another session with Steve on conducting usability testing!
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