Usability 2009

It’s 2009, how usable is your website?

As the World Wide Web continues to evolve and grow, usability studies continue to render interesting insights into how user behaviour is changing along with the web. Users are becoming increasingly “ad-blind,” for example, making it increasingly challenging for advertisers and publishers to get and keep user attention.  That was one of the findings of a recent study that used the very latest in eye tracking technology to closely gauge user interest as they performed tasks and surfed websites.  The study was conducted by Jakob Niesen’s Neilsen Norman Group, out of California.

Nielsen found that one aspect of images users connected best to was the appeal of people who are “not too good looking.” “Approachable” people were more likely to draw the attention of users rather than professional models.  The greatest connection was to images of people looking directly at users, as long as the photo was attractive, but not too attractive.

The traditional F pattern of usage was still prominent in study results and this shows that as much as ever a strong opening to a web page is key to keeping users on the page. Says Nielsen, "People are extremely good at screening out things and focusing in on a small number of salient page elements."

Other study findings were of interest to people looking at web usability in 2009.

• Users do sneak peeks at ads and are quick to dismiss their message from attention. This is always a “secondary thing,” says Nielsen, although in practice, many people are using the web to find products they specifically need.
• Images in the middle of a page are only a roadblock to most users.
• People do respond to pictures that present information that is genuinely useful, as opposed to fluff or ancillary imagery.
• Around the age of 7, kids start to become more discerning and “ad blind.”

Contrary to a belief that usability testing or user experience design are a thing of the past in 2009, the study found design issues that detracted from the usability of very expensively produced business websites and consumer portals. Companies today struggle as much as ever with trying to balance design with information and usability.

To learn how Interpix can help you design for users in 2009, contact us.

Design issues uncovered in the study included potentially useful products whose callouts looked too much like ads and were thus ignored by users.  This “mistaken identity” was a problem with several of the websites tested in the study.  The problem, often, is that companies get too cute with branding company information that is truly useful to their customers.

Kids under 7 were more susceptible to flashy, colourful banner ads and they did tend to focus on and click banner ads.