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Correct common usability oversights

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by maryweilage

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In this week's Design and Usability Tactics e-newsletter, columnist Michael Meadhra discusses some common usability oversights and how to correct them. How well does your site comply with these commonsense usability measures? Do you think you'll utilize some of Michael Meadhra's usability advice?

If you aren't subscribed to the Design and Usability Tactics TechMail, visit our e-newsletter subcenter to subscribe to this free e-newsletter:
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by netanator

Sending articles to people via email can be an effective way to demonstrate that the content of your website always remains fresh. However, when that article is full of mistakes that confuse your readers or appears to be less than legible, that can make you appear less than credible - especially when you target people who work in technical fields.

Consider the following sentence from this article:

"Thiscolor change has become expected behavior that helps keep visitorsoriented to their location in and progress through the site."

Obviously it should be:

"This color change has become expected behavior that helps keep visitors oriented to their location in and progress through the site."

Every sentence in the article contains errors similiar to the sentence I have used for an example.

The above sentence makes me wonder if Builder.com has decided that either people do not read the articles, so proofreading is no longer necessary; or their technical staff assumes that every article is developed free of errors, so proofreading is not necessary; or they are just too damn lazy to ensure that they send legible documents to their readers.

This has been going on for some time now folks. Get it together or stop sending me articles that I have to decipher.

That is my free usability tip for today.

Jim

by webmonkeybuilder

I am guilty of having a "Home" button on all my web pages. However, I provide the user some other visual cues that let them know they've reached my homepage.

1. A "Breadcrumb" Menu

Homepage > First level > Second level > presently viewed level

In my case I prefer the following so there is no confusion:

Company Name > Homepage

Refer to the following page for more info: http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/menu.htm

2. A Page Title on each page

Funny, if you consistently place a page title on each page in the same place, folks will get your not so subtle hint that the title of the page bears some relation to the content of the page. If you have a happy "Home" title on your page, folks should be able to figure out that they have reached your homepage.

3. A sitemap

If you've incorporated both elements above for redundant insurance that your end user is informed about whether or not they have reached your homepage, but you are still in doubt, how about including a link to a page with a sitemap to dispel all doubt.

I will try and head sacred rule number 4 in the future though, despite taking these precautions.

Cheers :)

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