Don't Make me think...

_config.yml

You can get the book here. (This is a non-affiliated link etc. I don’t receive a commission for posting it.)

How people use the web?

“Don’t make me think.”

Krug’s First Law of Usability

  • Lesson #1: Users scan. They don’t read.
  • Lesson #2: People “muddle” through websites: they guess, and hope. If they guess wrong, they can always go back.
  • Lesson #3: Keep it short. Why? Because nobody wants long instructions.
  • Lesson #4: As simple as possible. Why? Because nobody wants anything more complicated.

Designing

Lesson #3: Users don’t like to think. Thinking is expensive. It hurts their head, gives them anuerisms. Do the utmost to prevent them from exercise any thought. And the corollary:

“Don’t make me do work” Ben Koshy’s first law of usability

  1. Use conventions (i.e. color, location etc. where possible)
  2. Create visual hierachies, Break up pages, keep the noise down, don’t show walls of text

This makes it easy to “scan”

  1. Allow for Mindless Choices

“It doesn’t matter how many times I have to click, as long as each click is a mindless, unambiguous choice.” – Krug’s Second Law of Usability

If the choice is mindless and clear – that’s good.

It the choice requires thinking, and is ambiguous – that’s really bad. Remember, users get confused easily.

If this gets repetitive, then change the design to minimize the work. Users will appreciate it.

Sometimes difficult choices need to be made. Then provide people with:

  1. Brief information to help them choose, at the appropriate time/place.
  2. Make it unavoidable.

And the corollary: allow for them to contact you for help. Without this, then they’ll feel completely trapped.

Omit Needless Words

Get rid of half the words on each page, then get rid of half of what’s left

  • Happy talk must be eliminated. If you hear “blah blah” in the back of your mind - then it’s gotta go.
  • Instructions must die. Things need to be intuitively designed so that you don’t NEED instructions. Nobody reads them anyways, until they’ve made repeated attempts at muddling through.

Street Signs and BreadCrumbs

There are two types of users:

  1. Those wanting to “Search”
  2. Those wanting to navigate.
  3. Keep in mind utilities (i.e. login etc.)
  4. A home page.

Adopt common conventions, avoid any type of complication, no matter how minute.

Make navigation easy for them, so that they know where they are - especially so they can “reset” if they want to with a “Home” button (i.e. a North star to guide them).

IT’s very handy to have persistent navigation everywhere. Apart from places where you need to fill out forms - e.g. billing etc. Remove any distraction / hindrance to that, but DO solve any problems which may exist for users.

  • Every page should show you where you are. Make the names exact to prevent confusion. i.e. if you clicked on “Quote 3000 - Diamond Towers Project” - the page should be called the same, rathern than “Quote 3000….”. Breadcrumbs offer a simple solution to the problem: “where am I now?”.

The trunk test: print out a page, and squint, i.e. make it blurry. You need to find the following, quickly:

  1. What site is this? (Site ID)
  2. What page am I on? (Page name)
  3. What are the major sections of this site? (Sections)
  4. What are my options at this level? (Local navigation)
  5. Where am I in the scheme of things? (“You are here” indicators)
  6. How can I search?

Homepage - Big Bang Theory

Answer these questions, in less than 3 seconds:

  1. What is this?
  2. What am I doing here?
  3. What do they have here?
  4. Why should I be here, and not somwhere else?
  • Tag line: spivvy marketing line.
  • Welcome blurb: explaining what we do.
  • Learn more: for a deeer explanation (i.e. via a video or some such thing).

You need to show someone outside the organisation to understand this.

Lastly: avoid over-promoting everything on the home page. If you over-promote, then other things suffer, and things get lost in the detail.

Religious Debates

  • Better a dictator than a solution formed by many compromises, by a committee. This ain’t a republic where a nation’s founding fathers thought it best to avoid the tyranny taxes which inevitably follow from dictatorships - you are solving a problem, within an enterprise whose only goal is to solve problems. Now is not the time follow all the advice of project managers, marketing folks, business development folks etc. Rationalize it all, make some trade offs and come to a decision. This is arguably Steve Jobs’ key insight: make trade-offs and, if you have to, coerce others to do the same.

  • Average Web users like “x”: wrong. ALL WEB USERS ARE UNIQUE AND ALL WEB USE IS BASICALLY IDIOSYNCRATIC

Testing

  • Grab 3 users, sit behind their desk, and watch. You’ll learn a lot about what needs to be fixed. You’ll also learn about their habits, and possibly, what new features to build.
  • Do this at least once a month. I would venture to do this x1 a week.
  • Don’t be too fussy about who the users are. Almost any will do, and will uncover plenty of problems.
  • Scripts and Checklists for Usability Testing

It is preferable to get a user that you know. If you don’t know them, then you have to do things like:

Welcome: Then you’ll have to foster / encourage sharing of information. There will be caveats about sharing information. Some will feel nervous because they are not computer experts - you’ll have to reassure them that you’re testing the site, not their ability. All of these things can be obviated by grabbing a user you already know.

The next step is to encourage folks to think out loud. You can ask them to perform a series of tasks. Or even better, is to observe them in the wild, and ask them to think out loud, and what tasks they are performing, and moreover, WHY, they are performing it.

You can ask them questions like: “what is this page about?”

(i) Typical Problems

  1. Unclear on the concept - what are they even meant to do. Why?
  2. The words in their mind are not there. e.g. “Delete” instead of “Trash”
  3. Too much clutter.

Key Point: Focus Ruthlessly on Fixing The Most Serious Problems First

  • Just a small tweak is enough to remove it from the “serious usability” problem.
  • Resist the impulse to add things. It adds clutter. Likely, you’ll want to take things away.

Mobile

There’s nothing particularly new here.

Goodwill

Your website should be a ‘mencsch’ - that is, a stand-up guy.

It’s simple: just basic manners and courtesy:

(i) Things that Decrease Goodwill

(i) avoid any type of chicanery. (ii) main thing: have a contact point. That is useful and meaningful. (iii) be up-front. e.g. wading through reams of stuff. (iv) add conveniences for users. e.g. don’t make them fill out 100 page legal documents if they want to opt. (vii) don’t make work for users: e.g. asking them to type in a credit card without spaces. etc.

(ii) Things that Increase Goodwill

  • Printer friendly pages.

Continue on pg. 154

Written on June 8, 2022