Robin Blandford [ ByteSurgery.com ]

17/11/05 Verbal Web Usability - Krug’s Errors

As you’re aware, I’m writing a detailed ‘Usability Test & Review’ report for a website as part of my Web Usability Engineering module at DCU. You can see the document ‘in progress‘ via writely.com, the online word processor.

Reading guidelines set by the usability ‘king’ in his book ‘Don’t make me think’, I feel Steven Krug leaves out something very important while detailing usability testing with random candidates. Unlike ‘Krug’ in his book who recommends having the homepage preloaded in a minimised browser window before the user begins, I feel strongly that it is better to allow the user to gain a full exposure to the site without protective padding. I believe the test facilitator can achieve this by presenting a blank browser window to the user and verbally transferring the URL to them, once and only once.

By watching and talking with the user from this early stage it is possible to gain a further understanding than documented in the guidelines. These are the extended experiences my mind has stumbled across tonight:

• Is the URL easy to understand, do the joined words all in lowercase read logically or form distracting sub words?
• Is it hard to spell, pronounce or does the user make a mistake when entering the URL?
• Can they remember the URL from the single iteration or do they result to a search engine query?
• How do they react to the homepage loading times and the order of items to appear on screen?
• Do they click on something before the entire page has loaded?

I have created a custom Amazon store of my recommended reading lists and book reviews. You can get your own copy of Don’t Make Me Think here.

Tags: DCU, General, Ideas, Web Usability Engineering

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