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Lots of web sites are “miserable”. Theydo not justify the time and money that

has been invested in them. That is theopinion of web usability guru JakobNielsen. As co-founder of consultancy theNielsen Norman Group, Nielsen hastested hundreds of web sites to see if theyachieve their aims. He believes that manyprojects have either set out with thewrong objectives in mind or their design-ers have ignored small, but importantdetails during their development. “I’vedone testing where users have been on asite for half-an-hour and still don’t knowwhat’s going on. In the real world, theywould have left long ago.”

The Nielsen Norman Group’s advice onsite design fills many books. It ranges fromsimple placement issues (such as put asearch box in the top left-hand or right-hand corner of the page) and technologyissues (don’t use Flash applications,

particularly for pointless introductions), tocontent issues (make sure there are pricesnext to all the products in an e-catalogue,instead of making customers drill down tofind them). But for Nielsen, and others,while usability is a design issue, it is also abusiness issue.

With the mad rush of the dot-comboom over, there is no place forhaphazard or slapdash approaches to webdesign, says Nielsen. The emphasis shouldbe on careful planning and ease ofnavigation – and on making sure themistakes of the past are not repeated. Sohow should companies make sure thattheir sites perform acceptably, withoutcosting too much money? And howshould organisations apply what they havelearnt to new platforms as they emerge?

Nielsen argues that the average webuser, whether a customer or an employeeon an intranet, comes to a site to access

Simplicityis priceless

Designing web sites that aresimpler and easier to use mayproduce more benefits thanadding more powerfultechnologies. So how cancompanies put in place theprocesses to give web userswhat they really want?

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information or to perform a task, both ofwhich they want to do as quickly and easilyas possible. Bigger servers, morebandwidth and distributed systems may bethe main methods used by organisationsto speed up their web sites, but simplifyingpages and graphics, and making siteseasier to navigate and use are muchcheaper options that will produce fargreater benefits for most companies,maintains Nielsen. The costs of improvinga site’s usability by changing its contentand interface will be more than paid for bythe gains, he adds.

USER INVOLVEMENT So how should businesses plan tomaximise the use of their sites? Accordingto Nefyn Jones, head of customerinteraction management at consultancyDetica, the interface should be designedwith user input from the beginning,particularly for intranet sites. “Not havingusers involved from the start is a recipe fordisaster,” he says.

One project Detica was involved inrelated to a Java front-end to a billingsystem and customer contact system. Thecompany concerned wanted a new frontend to make call centre agents moreproductive and provide better customer

service, and it spent a lot of time on theapplication, ironing out all the flaws.However, as soon as the company gottalking to the call centre agents, itdiscovered that they didn’t work in theway the system had been built. Moreover,the agents that tried to use the systemwere marked down by the qualitymonitoring system that determined theirbonuses because the application madethem behave against the quality controlprescriptions. Eventually, the agents gaveup using the system during calls, writingdown the details instead and enteringthem afterwards in order to improve theirperformance.

“I think you have to keep userrepresentatives on a project full-time fromthe beginning,” says Jones. “We’ve justfinished a project that had three users outof eight on it for the entire eight-weekperiod, providing feedback on theinterface, what they liked, what they didn’tlike.” Input from users at the beginningcan save considerable amounts of budget:six months on, a small flaw in the systemwill take far more money to fix than if ithad been caught at the beginning.

This constant feedback and testing,Jakob Nielsen says, is very important.Iterative testing, where designs are

continuallyevaluated by userfocus groups andthen modifiedbefore being givenback to the groups,will ensure that, asnew content isadded to the site, oras new groups ofusers come to it, thesite adapts tocontinue to providemaximum

functionality and usability. But the sitedesign needs to be based on a scalableconcept from the beginning.

“The worst thing developers can do,”says Marie Tahir, director of strategy at theNielsen Norman Group, “is add navigation[to sites] but not have a scalable design inthe first place. You don’t want to have somany navigation schemes you’re not surewhat the main navigation system is.”Confuse the user and he or she will leaveor use the system.

Nielsen and Tahir also advocate havingan in-house team rather than outsidedesigners. Chris Guidroz, senior creativeconsultant at IT services companyCambridge Technology Partners (CTP),says that the differences can be obvious.“A lot of companies have one companydesign the web site, then as technologychanges, they bring in other companies todo pieces. You end up with inconsistentbranding. Users can tell that differentpeople have worked on the site.” Havingeither an in-house department maintainthe design or the same outside companycontinue with it is best practice, he says.

Nielsen warns, however, that it isimportant to get an outside perspectiveon site design. “Cultural differences canapply inside and outside the company, andcan be even greater than that betweendifferent countries.” There is amethodology for overcoming thatdifference, he says. “You do studies to getan outsider’s perspective.”

DEALING WITH DEVICES The importance of usability issues looksset to grow and grow as accessing websites on the move becomes morecommon. For example, Nielsen says thatmany sales people are now accessingcorporate intranets via personal digitalassistants (PDAs) and mobile computers.Over time, many consumers are also

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“The worst thing developers can do is add navigation to sites but not have a scalable deign in the first place.”

THE Nielsen Norman Group has testedhundreds of sites on users around the world.Their testing suggests companies should notdo the following: • Put pictures of ‘smiling ladies’ on their siteAccording to director of strategy, MarieTahir, ‘smiling ladies’ is the nickname thegroup has given to generic pictures of seem-ingly elated women – often holding babies –that are on the front pages of numerouscompanies’ web sites, from toy stores to oilcompanies. “They don’t relate to anythingand draw attention away from the content,”says the group.

• Have a meaningless mottoThe tag line on a web site should succinctlyexplain the purpose of the site. Users willnot drill down through a site to find outwhat it does. • Try to be too differentCommon functions such as ‘search’,‘Contact us’, and ‘About us’ should be calledby those names so as not to frustrate andconfuse users. • Use pull-down menus if normal links canbe used insteadPull-down menus are difficult to manipulateand do not show all the options at once.

Things NOT to put on a web site

Jakob Nielsen,Nielsen Norman Group: “There is noplace for slapdash web site design.”

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expected to access web sites via theirmobile phones.

Simplicity and ease-of-use whenconnecting to a web site or intranet via aPDA or mobile will be paramount, saysNielsen. The systems will not be used ifthey do not deliver exactly what peoplewant and make it ease to use, he warns.“With the web, people leave if it doesn’twork. That’s true even more with mobile.You live and die by the quality of the userinterface. There’s a lot to make differentbecause the environment is so different.”Developers have to consider differentmodes of user input, screen sizes, thespeed of various devices, and so on.

CTP’s Guidroz says the most importantpoint to keep in mind is that, whendealing with devices with small screens,

such as PDAs and mobile phones, youhave to limit the amount of informationthat you deliver. “A lot of people go intothe channel [device] area without knowingwhat it can handle. Companies need to doa content audit, then decide what isappropriate for different devices.Sometimes it’s hard to tell someone theycan’t put their entire corporate missionstatement on a handheld because of thesize of the display. So you have to showthem what they can have, then workthrough what they can’t.”

That type of audit, in common withNielsen’s iterative testing, needs to bedone regularly – at least twice a year forintranets, monthly for public web sites.

The problem for many companies isdeciding who should pay for changes to

web site and intranet design in order todeliver usability benefits. “It’s not going tobe on the bottom line of the departmentthat provides the usability,” argues Nielsen.“People won’t consider doing it if it’s notin their own interest. They don’t thinkabout the overall saving.”

So while improving usability may be aself-funding goal that will increase site‘stickiness’ and intranet use, it will takecompany boards or a gracious ITdepartment to bring such benefits toexisting systems.

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C O N T A C T

Article by Rob BuckleyEmail: rbuckley@infoconomy.com

IN his book, Homepage Usability, Internetusability guru Jakob Nielsen outlines his opinions on the home pages of 50 of theworld’s best-known companies. For each, heoffers detailed advice on how these companiescould improve usability on their sites. Beloware a few examples of his words of advice:

Amazon.com: Nielsen congratulates onlineretailer Amazon for the way it categorises avast selection of products while still maintain-

ing an uncluttered appearance on its homepage. Another good aspect of the site, accord-ing to Nielsen, is the way it uses examples of itsbestsellers to draw users into particular prod-uct areas. Having the help facility in the topright hand corner is also useful, as this isincreasingly where users expect it to be.

Amazon is far from perfect, however.Nielsen lists several criticisms, one of which isthe fact Amazon has optimised its site for personalisation. While this works well forreturning users, says Nielsen, it can leave

first-timers confused, so Amazon would bewell advised to create a separate home page fornew users. Nielsen also points out that, compared to the overall site’s excellent stan-dard of usability, its home page is still lacking.

BBC.co.uk: Overall, Nielsen says the homepage of the British Broadcasting Corporation(BBC) is clean and well categorised, with agood combination of categories to browse.Nielsen also applauds the BBC for offering aneasy-to-find text-only version of the site.

But having a wide range of categories toview has its downside. Because the BBC is trying to convey so much about the differentservices it provides, with details on TV, news,weather and shopping alongside a host ofother things, it tries to cram too much into asmall space, says Nielsen. As a result, certainfeatures are not fully explained, which couldpotentially confuse the user.

Additionally, Nielsen says the BBC does notgive high enough priority to TV and radio

schedules, given that it is the online presence ofa broadcasting company. Another weakness ispoor archiving of past content.

Microsoft.com: Although software giantMicrosoft’s home page offers an attractive,clean layout, it lacks a single voice and tone,according to Nielsen. With separate sectionsdevoted to each of the company’s key tech-nologies and brands, it is difficult to find aunified message.

In addition, much of the text is highly technical and serious, aimed at the technologyprofessional. This means certain sectors ofMicrosoft’s audience, such as computer gamefans, might feel excluded.

In its favour, Nielsen praises the site for itsease of navigation. “This is one of the best-structured left-hand navigation bars on theweb,” he says. Microsoft has clearly separatednavigation categories visually and conceptually,so users don’t have to hunt around for theinformation they need on the site.

Face value