Usability Matters

Until reading Jakob Nielsen's Usability 101: Definition and Fundamentals, I had never heard the term "usability". Usability was something I had dealt with before in my own visiting websites, and I had experienced sites with poor usability as well as those with good usability.

Usability itself was a something I'd encountered, but never given much thought to. Now that I'm making my own website, it's something I need to be aware of because it does have an impact on visitors to a site.

The priniciples of usability as put forth by Nielsen make sense. They're easy to comprehend and it can be understood why these principles of usability--and moreover usability itself--are so crucial to web design.

I also liked how Nielsen was candid with the reader about why it is important to put the time and effort into usability testing for their company's website. He mentioned something that has been very true (at least in my experience with poorly designed websites): If they don't get what they need easily, users will leave your site.

Nielsen writes,"There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty". That's one of the benefits, and in this case drawbacks, of the Internet. There's such a wealth of knowledge out there that the answer to one question can be found in probably hundreds of other places.

I read an article about the multiple attempts to re-vamp the Georgia Tech Library's website. I found the article, "Redesigning for Usability: Information Architecture and Usability Testing for Georgia Tech Library's Website" on EBSCOhost through the Shepherd University library, but read the full-text PDF file from another site.


In this article, authors Heather Jeffcoat King and Catherine M. Jannik discuss the changes made to the Georgia Tech Library website beginning with the website's design in 2002. In between pages of the article, there are screen shots of the library website's homepage at different major intervals. The authors discuss the changes made and the processes of usability testing along each stage, and the screen shots helped me understand the progress better than just trying to picture the changes in my head. Figure 1 on page 3 shows a boring and confusing list of services for users to guess which one to go to, whereas Figure 3 on page 4 shows a more visually appealing homepage with the links from the list in Figure 1 neatly organized into a sidebar.


The article concluded with a statement that this project is ongoing, and that although the library's website has improved (an understatement!) Georgia Tech does not consider this the end. There are plans for more testing and incorporating the university's Digital Initiatives department into the current library site (King 7).

Citation:

King, Heather J., and Catherine M. Jannik. "Redesigning for Usability: Information Architecture and Usability Testing for Georgia Tech Library's Website." OCLC Systems & Services 21.3 (2005): 235-43. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Jan. 2011. .

Reaction to "The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet" from Wired magazine

This article was pretty intense, and I mean that in two ways: intense as in complex and almost over my head with the technical lingo, and intense as in serious and thought-provoking.

I felt like I was doggy-paddling through a good chunk of it, since I only understood a fraction of the technical jargon used in the article. I kept my head above the water, and I made it through both the "Blame Us" and "Blame Them" parts of the article.

Once I got past the language, the topic at hand really stood out. I remember some of this stuff from when I was growing up and how things have changed since then. I remember when Netscape would appear in the Internet Explorer browser window once my computer connected to the Internet, and I can remember when everyone was searching on Yahoo! before Google existed. Seeing the names like Netscape, Yahoo! and AOL again made me laugh. I had forgotten about these three former powerhouses like everyone else.

Michael Wolff's "Blame Them" section discusses Google's metamorphosis into something that can do everything yet be (almost) nothing at the same time. Just before signing in to my Blogger account, I noticed all of the services Google provides. There are so many--49 if my counting is correct--that's crazy!!

As for whether or not the Internet as we know it is going to fade away and mobile devices with apps will rule, I don't think so...not yet. I think if this does happen, there will be a slow but steady increase in mobile device/app-based Internet use and a small and gradual decline in traditional Web use. If this is going to happen, it won't be overnight.

I personally don't have an iPhone or iPad, or anything made by Apple other than an 8 gigabyte iPod. My new phone that I got over winter break is definitely a more modern improvement from the Motorola Razr I had been carrying around since 2008, but it's a far cry from a Blackberry, Android, or anything else that could run apps.

The best part is, I don't care. I think that people nowadays are too immersed in technology and that social media, instant messaging, and constantly text-messaging each other has us too connected. Not doing everything on my phone means less time I have to spend staring at a screen, which I do enough with classes, TV, and video games. I get to interact with real people face-to-face.