Usability isn’t only for Web design. It’s also applicable in the real world as things aren’t always well-designed. Paying attention to real world design can help you think through usability for Web design. For instance, there is an elevator in New York where the numbers are in three columns. The numbers go across, but in this elevator they go from right to left instead of left to right. It’s in English not Hebrew.

Elevator in NY:

10 9 8

7 6 5

Most elevators:

8 9 10

5 6 7

This concept can be applied to a Web page by assuring numbers, letters, and other meaningful groups of information are sorted in a logical order.

I also saw a school speed zone sign where it said to slow down during the following times:

7:30 AM – 8:15 AM

2:45 AM – 3:30 PM

Hmm… figure out what’s wrong with this sign? This one can also teach a lesson for Web design usability. What lessons come to mind?

Donald Norman talks about such design in The Design of Everyday Things. While I was in the hospital twice in a little over a one week period, I discovered a few usability problems.

The room I was in last week had a small TV, the kind that hangs from the wall like those you see at the blood centers. It had no captions, but the law (Television Decoder Circuitry Act (TDCA)) only requires TVs 13 inches are captioned. NBC didn’t work on that TV. Go figure… it was the only channel I could enjoy without captions because the olympics were on and sports are easy to follow.

The one good thing about that small room was the button to call the nurse. It didn’t have a speaker, so no one would try speaking to me when I called. She would just come as soon as she could.

My first room for the second visit’s adventures had a brand new flat screen TV. The only way to get the captions turned on was to fiddle with the options on the side of the screen. Could not do it from bed. Thankfully, tall Paul was there to do it. Not everyone has the luxury of having someone there to do it or even with the know-how.

The TV remote control was on a remote with three buttons: call nurse, light on / off, and TV. I could only go one way in changing the channels. If on channel 5 and wanted to be on channel 4, I had to go through all the channels to get to channel 4.

The second room had the same TV and remote set up. Once again, tall Paul had to turn on the captions. This time, when I called the nurse, she talked back through the speaker. We had to remind every shift and multiple nurses on that shift that I couldn’t hear over the speaker.

Luckily, I had family with me to help talk to the nurse. But I was alone all morning and without my implant. So I could not even hear any sound coming from the speaker where I could say what I needed and hope they caught it. Thankfully, I had a nurse who came in often enough that I didn’t need to call.

Many people learn by example. When reading documentation explaining the features of functionality, it doesn’t always make sense until seeing it in action. For instance, in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) line-height is explained as:

{
line-height:
   normal|npx|n%|…;
}

That isn’t going to make much sense to many of you even if you know CSS. What if I gave you an example of:

{
line-height: 150%;
}

Obviously, the 150% is represented by n% where n is the number. This command is telling the Web page to add spacing of about 1.5 lines.

Designing Websites for Every Audience starts with a chapter on usability with a focus on understanding users and the principles of usability. That’s the only lecture of the book and the rest is case studies.

The book has 25 case studies sorted by user goals, which include learners, shoppers, connection-seekers, transactors, business browsers, and fun-seekers. Each case study covers the old site and the transition to the new design. Essentially, a before and after, which is popular these days with interior design TV programs.

The case study pages are easy to scan. Every one has the company information, site information, users with their goals and tasks, goals of the redesign, and pictures. Benum uses a variety of Web sites for the case studies and discusses the problems with the old design. Then, she analyzes the new design explaining the common traps that have been disposed of and the action taken to improve the user experience.

The pages are colorful including color screenshots of the designs. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. Some of the side notes have a color background with black font making it hard to read, but this is the only negative thing in the book.

We have plenty of excellent books on how to improve the user experience when designing Web pages, but there are few that guide you through actual examples. Any Web designer who learns by example should have this one on the desk for referencing when working on a redesign.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: Designing Websites for Every Audience
AUTHOR: Ilise Benun
PUBLISHER: How Design Books
PUBLICATION DATE: January 2003
ISBN: 158180301X
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 144
PRICE: USD: 34.99
CDN: 46.09
UK: 24.99