The essential Krug-or what should be on a web page!

As a prelude to stating the final assignment I wanted to get down the essentials of Krug's Don't make me think. I found it very useful in getting my thinking started as to what will be on the home page and the type of navigation I might use.

Krug Summary
Essentials of a page:
1/LOGO: something that identifies that you are still on the same web site, unifies the site.
2/ TAGLINES: 6-8 words, right below, above or next to the site ID.
2/ TITLE: every page needs a name, prominent, in right place, needs to match what I clicked, left or right location better than center!
3/ SECTIONS: Primary navigation, be consistent across the site, use conventions, simple is better, some exceptions do occur but should always have a way home, site id etc
4/ UTILITIES: Search, Home, How to buy . Use conventions don’t try to reinvent and confuse the audience.
5/ Obvious click regions
6/ Clear visual hierarchy-the more important a thing is the more prominent.
- things that are related logically are also related visually (usually)
- nesting visually to show what’s part of what.
7/ Each page should be self evident-what it is and how to use it.
8/ Navigation: can you answer the question where am I?
9/ Breadcrumbs: You Are Here: home>…>here I am
-Put at the top
-Use > greater than signs
-Include words YOU ARE HERE:
-Boldface last item

Trunk Test
Q/What site is this? A/ Site ID
Q/ What page am I on? A/ Page name
Q/What are the major sections? A/ Sections
Q/What are my options at this level? A/ Local navigation
Q/ Where am I in the scheme of things? A/ You are here
Q/ How can I search? A/ Search box

Other Krug
Scan ability – what you see at a glance, users only scan pages

TABS
Krug prefers tabs to drop down menus
-self evident
-hard to miss
-slick
-suggest a physical space
-color coded
-show a tab selected when I enter the site.

Speeding up Web pages

Notes from research on speeding up web pages.

http://webdesign.about.com/od/speed/a/aa020800a.htm
table optimization

http://colorfilter.wickline.org/
color blndness

http://www.how-to.com/Marketing/Speedpages.html
images, scaling, code, use ccs
When is it OK to use Flash?
In product demos.
Virtual Tours or anything that needs a spatial feeling
Games, art, movie clips
Banner Ads
http://www.topwebsite.info/website-optimization-speed.php
Factors that affect the speed of the web site
Technical factors – the quality of the hosting package: speed of the web hosting server machine, number of web sites hosted on the same machine, Internet connection bandwidth (speed) available to the hosting provider and to the customers in their hosting packages
Software and design factors – quality of the web design and web programming. These are the factors that directly depend on the persons involved in the web Web site /web page/ optimization for speed
Web page graphics objects – pictures, images, photos, charts, etc. These are the most common objects that increase the web page total size and cause delay when it loads in the browser. The total size of one web page should be kept less than 50K that will guarantee the page can be loaded for less than 10 seconds using Internet with speed 56Kb/s. To achieve this recommendation consider the following basic rules:
Keep the number of different pictures in one web page as less as possible
Keep the picture size (in pixels) small, this will decrease the picture file size as well
Keep the number of colors in the pictures small. This has direct impact on their file size.
Reuse the images in the different web pages where it is possible, especially where the images are used for background formatting. Once the image file is downloaded to the visitors computer, it will be cached and its local copy reused afterwards for the next web pages opened from the same web site
The total size of all images in one web page should be less than 30K. This will left another 20K to be shared between the web page code elements and the web page content.
The web page code is not visible for the visitors. They see textual content and images only. Hence, to left more room for the actual web site content, it is important to optimize the web page code elements too.


http://www.netmechanic.com/cobrands/zd_dev/
web site testing

http://webdesign.about.com/od/speed/a/aa110998.htm
Speeding up your web page by Jennifer Kyrnin

Final test subject

Just to be more demographically correct my final user was a guy. His job would have suggested quite some familiarity with web sites in general yet I was surprised at how many times he missed the obvious links to areas like Contact us. If it was a the very top of the page he did not see it, same if it was at the very bottom of the page (never scrolled that far). I am wondering if it is a vision thing as I know he wears progressive ground glasses and he really just does not see these items unless they stand out or he moved his head slightly as usually happened as he become frustrated. In all my sites the Contact Us was in the the same place so much for repetition.
He was much more prepared to continue looking for the required item than my female users who tended to give up.
Writing this all up as fast as I can as will be heading to Australia first week of May and want to post it from there.

Video assignment

Have now done two of my three interviews and was very surprised by the differences between the two so far. One of my users showed me scanning in action in a big way. I don't think she read more than 5 words in any page section - dropdown menu, side nav column etc before she moved on to something else. Compared to my other user who scanned but on not finding what she was asked to went back and more thoroughly read. For the first user most of my sites were therefore a pain to use being very wordy in content, she certainly was quite frustrated.

The other major problem identified and one I thought I would see was the lack of a home buttom resulting in the use of the back button to eventually find the home page again. The logo was not identified as being home. Was found by one user by chance and commented "Would you look at that!"

Number three user is scheduled today, should be interesting.

Good usability testing references

Good usability testing references including examples of reports using video testing.

http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=826491
Usability Testing Basics
Jeffrey Graham July 17, 2000

http://usableweb.com/

http://www.dialogdesign.dk/cue.html
Comparative Usability Evaluation –

http://www.hennigweb.com/presentations/il98/index.htm
Going Forward: Usability Testing the Web Site
Nicole Hennig, Systems LibrarianBose® Corporationhennig@bose.com
Internet Librarian '98November 4, 1998

Working on my script

Am about to start my videoing of users viewing the three sites I have chosen.
The script is written but am unsure how long I should make this being they are friends doing this and there is no monetary incentive, probably a liquid one. I trialed it on my daughter who failed miserably but then the sites are very business orientated and she is only 12. When I say failed she did not understand the business terms used for half of what I was asking her to do.
Which got me thinking about the audience you are pitching your site to, you never really know who will visit, it could be kids doing a school project in which case only one of the sites I have is kid friendly. The other problem can just be the internet experience of the user so they miss things that while obvious to an experienced user may not be to them - the logo being the home key comes to mind, or the assumption that you will recognise the web address as home.
The exercise was useful for working the bugs out with the video and sound recording. Now on to the real thing...

Been just a tad busy

Has it been that long since my last post!!!
Madly trying to finish my assignment. Have gotten some very interesting responses to my questionnaire, seems Krug has it right as far as my audience are concerned. Look no further.
I should also be buying stock in Google as the most favored site for searching. Seems internet users are also no longer worried about online purchasing, everyone is doing it now. Not to say the system is perfect, users have some definite ideas there about what makes for a good experience but I will save that titbit for the assignment.

Seems Jakob Nielsen's has an Alertbox online http://www.useit.com/alertbox/annoyances.html
that is sent to managers of intranets which is who sent this to me. a bit of a plug for his up comming day seminar but also some interesting comments. I did like the links to past pages and came up with these comments:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/design_priorities.html
Indeed, the biggest design flaws destroying business value typically involve:
-Communicating clearly so that users understand you. Users allocate minimal time to initial website visits, so you must quickly convince them that the site's worthwhile.
-Providing information users want. Users must be able to easily determine whether your services meet their needs and why they should do business with you.
-Offering simple, consistent page design, clear navigation, and an information architecture that puts things where users expect to find them.

Interesting that they happen to exactly match what my questionnaire respondents found makes a good web site experience. Guess we can all be experts.

On the home front I have finished my job as event organiser so will now be giving 100% of my attention to NED23, well maybe 70:30 the kids have to get some attention. Husband you question, he gets about 0.1%, the dog rates higher I think, you only have so many hours in the day...just kidding Dear!