012 - usability geek - why websites with poor usability are still being developed

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usabilitygeek.com http://usabilitygeek.com/why-web-si tes-with-poor-usability-are-still-being-developed/

Why Web Sites With Poor Usability Are Still BeingDeveloped

By Justin Mifsud / Posted in Practical / Published September 5, 2011

We all know about the importance of web site usability. There are countless evangelists, guidelines, books,

blogs, research papers and whatnot emphasizing the importance and need to develop usable web sites. Yet,very often we still encounter web sites that frustrate us when we try to do even the most basic of tasks. Theweb is full of them and Vincent Flanders does a very nice job in bringing them together on his site WebPages that Suck.

Yes, you might argue that it is not a surprise since the web has been traditionally marred by web sites withpoor usability. In fact, many experts attribute poor usability as the primary reason for the failure of severalbusinesses in the dot-com bust. However what is surprising is that web sites with poor usability are still beingdeveloped as we speak.

The inevitable question here is Why? Why is it that with so many resources at hand, we still find web sites

that, well, suck at usability? Are developers unaware of usability principles? Dont the web site owners careabout enabling their customers to achieve their objectives when using their site? Do they care about thenegative image they portray and the potential loss of revenue from such sites? Well, the answer is not sostraightforward.
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For example, the screenshot above has been taken from the Sabletine Fine Pastries Web Site which hasbeen updated in 2011. Accessing the site you will notice that it suffers from what Vince Flanders refers to asMystery Meat Navigation (apart from a multitude of other poor usability features).

The objective of this post is to highlight what I consider to be the top 5 reasons why, with such an abundanceof resources, we still find web sites with poor usability on the web. This will help in understanding thisparadox and at the same time bring to light some of the pitfalls that we may inadvertently fall into whendeveloping web sites.

#5 Legacy

The Problem: The web still contains web sites that date back a couple of years and it is possible that you

come across them. For instance, the above screenshot has been taken from the Gates N Fences web sitewhen writing this post. As you can see at the bottom, there is a copyright notice stating that the web site hasbeen designed in 2008, although it is more likely that it dates back to 2004 and the - 2008 part was justadded in 2008 to make it actual. This means that this 7 year old web site is still alive. This may be a drasticexample to get inspired from. However, picking up certain concepts (such as navigational elements fromeven 1 or 2 year old web sites as an inspiration for a new web site) will, at best, help you develop a web site
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that is adequate for the user at the time it was developed, using the devices that were concurrently availableto view a web site well, you know where this is leading to.

How To Avoid It: My advice keep abreast with the latest developments, follow the key usability and userexperience professionals, see what the latest research shows, participate in online discussions and read,read and read. When referencing web sites that are already live on the web for inspiration, always keep inmind that they are (at least) a day old. So, do inspire yourself but at the same time look into the future. Blogsare a good starting point but I would also include Twitter and LinkedIN as excellent sources to keep up withthe latest trends and developments and to get valuable insight into where the industry is heading.

#4 Guidelines

The Problem: Web site usability guidelines are considered to be the best resource that a company can useto evaluate the usability of a web site and studies [1], [2], [3] show that adherence to guidelines cancontribute towards better usability. The actual problem with guidelines is that there are too many of them,making it difficult to know which set to use and apply. Additionally, guidelines are often inflexible, abstractand inconsistent in their application and interpretation.

So, what can go wrong here? A developer who totally ignores usability guidelines when developing a website is automatically ignoring the findings of the research that has been conducted to shape thoseguidelines. This, in turn, affects the usability of the web site that he/she is developing. There is, however,another possible scenario. A developer may, correctly, reference usability guidelines so as to ensure that

the web site he/she is developing is usable. However, in the process, they may be wrongly interpreting aguideline because that guideline is abstract in nature.

How To Avoid It: My advice here is to ensure that the guidelines that you are using are from a reliablesource and are ideally backed up by research. One very useful set of guidelines that are freely available,research-based and easy to understand and apply are Usability.govs Research-Based Web Design &Usability Guidelines. Also, common sense prevails and if a guideline does not seem to make sense, then itsbest that you double check it against other guidelines or research and then formulate your decision.

#3 Time
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The Problem: Usability evaluation (UE) is the process of measuring usability and recognising explicitusability problems [4]. Its main goal is to identify the main issues in the user interface that may lead to humanerror, terminate the user interaction with the system and cause user frustration. Conducting usabilityevaluation and improvement of web sites is becoming increasingly difficult because they are typicallybecoming larger and more complex in nature.

Moreover, web sites today tend to be updated more regularly than in the past. Such difficulty and its relativeresource consumption increases with larger web sites. Time is thus an important factor in the sense that theweb site life cycle is a short cycle due to market pressure and absence of distribution barriers. So as to meetsuch demanding deadlines, usability evaluation may be overlooked, resulting in less usable web sites.

Additionally, researchers such as Tobar et al. [3] state that all forms of quality measurement of a web sitesuch as usability evaluation can only be carried out up to a limited depth. This essentially means that someaspects of poor usability can go by undetected during the usability evaluation phase.

How To Avoid It: Usability evaluation should be part of the development process. If a web site is usable,then it is highly likely that your clients will get better results for their investment. This will in turn lead to morework from those clients and/or attain positive referrals from them. Particular care should be taken at the userinterface design process so as to incorporate usability principles. If a client introduces changes, make sureto justify the reasons why certain design elements were in place and, ( if it is the case), how these changeswill have a negative impact on the sites usability. Companies should also invest in evaluating new webtechnologies, design trends and research findings and use such research at their advantage so as to createa leading edge over their competition. Time should be created" and one good starting point would be toevaluate the internal procedures so as to introduce re-usability and standardise processes so as to provide

a smoother internal work-flow. You will soon find that such (yes, boring) exercise can be very fruitful inspeeding up the design / development process and leave you some precious time which you can dedicatefor research.

#2 Client
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The Problem: Yes, the client can sometimes be a pain. You may have designed keeping usability in mind,adhered to usability guidelines and principles but the sad reality is that your client, very often, has the lastsay. We have all been there at one point or another, you present your web site mock-up to your client, whoat first looks impressed and then utters the infamous but followed by alterations so as to make the web sitepop out more, more edgy, more web 2.0. Matthew Inman (aka The Oatmeal) did a very good job atpoking humour at this scenario. The more decision makers such as advertising agencies, marketingpersonnel and external consultants that your client involves in the approval process, the more likely that yourweb site changes from what you had originally proposed. The end result is highly likely to be an abomination,a far cry from the usable web site that you had originally designed.

How To Avoid It: Proper client management is crucial. If you have good internal procedures on how tomanage your clients (as advised above), then you will find that this can save you a lot of rework whilstmaking it less likely that your design is changed from the original concept. You need to sell usability to yourclients and by explaining the importance of web site usability for a company. To learn more about how to dothis, I recommend 2 posts which I have written in this blog: The 5 Steps of Selling Usability To A Company(Part 1 and Part 2).

#1 Money
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The Problem: The usability evaluation process requires the engagement of experts to conduct it, and thereis a shortage of such experts. The process is expensive and some companies do not have the financialcapacity to sustain this evaluation. Additionally, web technologies evolve very quickly and are rapidlydeployed. Therefore the availability of funds to finance usability and usability evaluation of the web sitesbeing developed plays a crucial role within web development.

How To Avoid It: If your client is willing to pay for their site to be evaluated by a usability professional, thenthis is not a problem you should worry about. The sad reality is that you will encounter very few clients (if

any) who can afford $22,000-$40,000+ for a usability evaluation. Dont get me wrong here. I am not arguingabout price but about what your average client can afford. So, the only solution is for you to ensure thatdesignated personnel within your company keep abreast with the latest developments in the field of usability.

Additionally, some good tools that facilitate remote usability testing are also available. Some of them areactually being advertised in the sidebar of this page so you might want to check them out. It is up to you ondevising methods so as to fund the investment for research and costs associated with usability testing (suchas licenses). You may opt for transferring the entire cost on your client, or absorb part of it. The idea here isthat today, usability testing is more possible and can be conducted with a lower budget than in the past andthe result is obviously far better than doing nothing about it.

Final Thoughts

As stated earlier on, the objective of this post is to highlight the main issues that can contribute towards thedevelopment of web sites with poor usability. The list of problems is by no means exhaustive and the order inwhich they are being presented here is subjective. For instance you might argue that time is more of alimiting factor than money and you can be right too. The aim of this post is ultimately one of creatingawareness, so that you understand the main reasons why web sites with poor usability are still beingdeveloped and, more importantly, get an insight of how you can avoid facing the same mistakes.

References

1. Comber, T., 1995. Building usable web pages: an HCI perspective. In Proc. Australian Conference onthe Web AusWeb95. Ballina, Australia, 1995.

2. Ivory, M.Y. & Hearst, M.A., 2001. The state of the art in automating usability evaluation of userinterface. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), December. pp.470-516.

3. Tobar, L.M., Latorre Andrs, P.M. & Lafuente Lapena, E., 2008. WebA: a tool for the assistance indesign and evaluation of websites. Journal of Universal Computer Science, pp.1496-512.

4. Dix, A., Finlay, J., Abowd, G.D. & Beale, R., 2004. Human Computer Interaction. 3rd ed. Essex,England: Pearson Education Ltd.
http://www.nngroup.com/services/testing.html

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