Where Rasta Meets Pasta

I attended this pre-conference workshop hosted by Jared Spool.  His organization UIE, performs research, training and consulting specialized in web site usability.  With thousands of user test results, Jared uses his empirical data to refute common ‘best practices’ about web use.  This post summaries his key findings.

The top 60 pixels
Usability and eye tracking research shows that the top 60 pixels of a web pages are ’skipped’ over.  This is the web-page space that is most commonly occupied by banner ads.  The point here, if it is really important, don’t put it in the top 60 pixels of a page.

Designing for the Scent of Information
The strength of information scent refers to the extent to which users can confidently predict what they will find if they pursue a certain path through a website.  Good or strong scent means that the words used to lead users, resonate with them and each ‘click’ on their path deepens that strength, with the ultimate objective of reaching their goal.  We’ve all done it, clicked, and felt sure of ourselves, sure that we were on our way to we what we wanted, or alternatively, clicked and felt unsure and uncertain “…it kind of seems right…”.

• UIE believes that the best sites are rich with content that ’sucks’ users towards it
• Each link gives off a scent that users follow
• As the scent get’s stronger, the user get more confident that they are going in the right direction
• If you design for scent, your content will ’suck’ people too it

UIE performed research on what prevents good scent, here are some of their findings:

• Search engines
  • Users click on them because the page they are on lacks scent  
  • The users then type in the words they wanted in the links on the page, UIE calls these trigger words - essentially, the users are building their own scent
• Navigation menus
  • For them to work, the links on them have to have the scent the users is looking for
  • scent is often very specific, by nature, navigation menus are not
• Short links don’t emit scent
  • The links with the most scent have 7 to 12 words
• Short pages reduce scent, if a page either stops short or has a scroll blocker (something that gives the impression that a page is over, like a horizontal line or white space), good scent is often hard to find
• Cute ‘catchy’ links have weak scent
• Scent is context dependent, in other words, the page a link is on adds or detracts from its scent

To design for good scent UIE says:

• Start with content page
• Figure out from where users will likely want to get to that page
• Put links in all the places where peopel would most likely want to find your content
• To ensure every design element contributes to users’ confidence be sure to
  • ensure link quality, navigation graphics, information organization

Three type of Graphics

• Navigation graphics
  • intended to help users get to desired destination
  • may accompany or replace text links
• Content graphics
  • contains information the user is interested in
• Ornamental graphics
  • pretty much anything else but often are professionally created, establish mood, frivolity

Usability Testing - multiple approaches

1. 5 Second Test:  show tester a page for 5 seconds and ask them to what they remember about the page
2. Scavenger Hunt Test
3. Interview
4. Inherent Value:  experienced users  show you design and say what they like and don’t like
5. Catalogue Based Test:  using printouts have users highlight items that are interesting then ask them to fine the items on-line

Home Pages are the Hotel Lobby’s of the internet it gives you an impression, but all you really care about is the room - doesn’t matter how much you like the lobby if the room does not meet your needs your are not satisfied.