WCAG 2.0 - ready to go?

So version 2.0 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are here, but are they worth all the fuss?

When I first encountered the draft WCAG 2.0 guidelines many moons ago now, I wasn't so sure. As time has passed however, I am warming to them tremendously and am really looking forward to using them regularly in my day to day work.

I can appreciate the criticisms - too vague, technology agnostic to the point of providing little implementation advice and complex, inaccessible documentation to name but a few. I can however also appreciate many of the clarifications made in WCAG 2.0 and the increased measurability of some of WCAG 1.0's vaguer checkpoints, particularly around colour contrast and scalability.

Much greater emphasis has also been placed on Multimedia content and this is only right given the way the web has changed. Users with cognitive impairment will also benefit greatly from much more specific guidelines around understandable and clear content which fall under the 'Understandable' priority.

Further information about WCAG 2.0 can be found in my (previous) article 10 things you should know about WCAG 2.0. With the exception of point 1, all of the points are still valid now that WCAG 2.0 has been released.

Only time (and implementation experience) will tell if WCAG 2.0 stands the test of time and is indeed robust enough to adapt to what is a fast moving environment. In the meantime, I'd like to welcome WCAG 2.0 to the world and all of you to WCAG 2.0.

Usability and the gaming industry II

Controls
People have different preferences; do you use your computer mouse on the left or right of your keyboard? Games should also allow players to have control of their controls. Provide the ability to remap controller buttons to suit personal preferences.

Having controls that don’t do what a player expects will lead to frustration and loss of interest in the game.

Don’t over complicate controllers by thinking every button must be used. If there isn’t the need for it, don’t do it.

Remember to consider the menu system, and objects within the game. Opening doors, swapping weapons, jumping onto ledges…

Tutorials/Learnability
Create a safe environment to make mistakes. Players need to try buttons, actions, and commands to see what is and isn’t possible.

Tutorials are important, they should always have a level of engagement for the player to see how they will become immersed in the game. Do not leave the creation of tutorials to the end of the development of the game.

Gradually introduce sophistication in game play throughout the game. New things to do should be introduced to the player bit by bit, not all at once.

Use loading screens to educate the player in new skills.

Menu systems
Entering/exiting games...
Allow the player to press any button to start a game. Don’t make them unnecessarily stop and think about how to start.

Once players have cleared a section of a game, it should then be available for them from the start menu so they can go back to it if they wish. Allowing players to jump in and out of game play as they wish will increase game play. Making it difficult to enter a game where they want is more likely to result in the player switching off the console.

Saving games...
If you give players the option to save their game at an appointed place, once they’ve reached the save place, don’t ask them if they want to save.

What’s the best way to allow players to save games?

• Save at an arbitrary point,
• after a task has been completed,
• at particular save points within the game,
• quick saves.

Quick save might not be required depending on the games difficulty level, but providing the facility for those who wish to use it is a good balance. I liked the Resident Evil save, where you collect typewriter ribbons so the save is built in as part of the game play, although this is due to change with the release of Resident Evil 5. The long and short of it is that the save function should depend on the particular game. Testing should be done to see how players would expect to save.

Pausing games...
All players need to be able to pause a game knowing they will not lose anything. How this is done should depend on the game. ‘Guitar Hero World Tour’ deals with pausing well, players are given a countdown of 5 beats to get back on track. This could be further improved by allowing the player to decide how many beats they require.

Other features...
Swapping between easy and advanced modes should be easy. Whether it is the single player who wants more advanced game situations and wants to swap, or whether it’s two people paying one after another at different levels. Quite often it can be a frustrating experience to swap between modes, and can put new players off a game if it is difficult to choose easy.

Cut scenes
Cut scenes are often used to advance the game plot, develop characters, and provide background stories, mood changes, essentially to immerse the player deep into the game. Many games are greatly enhanced with clever cut scenes.

Players should always be able to skip cut scenes. It is the player’s choice that matters, not how important the scenes are to the story.

Ensure cut scenes have subtitles, and use a clear font. Even if players don’t listen to the whole thing, they can skim read conversations.

Game play
A game should be a challenge to play, not a challenge to use. Players should not have to sit for hours trying to work out how to do a particular jump to get onto a higher up object. A player should always know what they can & can’t do, avoid the ‘what the hell am I supposed to be doing’ moment.

Get the player involved from the start. Don’t have a drawn out start to a game as they will become bored before even starting.

Give players the ability to change design features to make game play more interactive. E.g. in GTA, players have the ability to change the radio station in cars and the volume of music.

Allow players to reread mission instructions. If a player fails a mission, they should be able to reread the mission. If they have paused the game and gone back to it later, give the player the ability to reread missions throughout game play.

In order to reach levels of high emotional states, players must be given calm periods as well as high intensity periods. Tim Home uses a good analogy of a roller coaster to describe this. “The fun lies in going up and down on the ride. Staying at the same elevation is about as much fun as riding a monorail.” Having the game on a consistent level will tire the player out, or perhaps bore them stupid.

At the moment, I’m in the future racing league of WipEout HD for the PS3 which is a total joy - You can you go retro and have a similar look from when I was playing it in 1997. I feel like a child fighting over who's shot it is.

Power to the people: Stephen Fry and the new Blackberry Storm

Comments from Stephen Fry on the new Blackberry Storm appear to have received a lot of attention recently, as discussed on the BBC technology blog. The question of one person's influence over the success or failure of a new gadget is believed by some to be a real threat and in this case, Stephen Fry's negative review on the usability of the new Storm. It is quite possible that this one very well known man could influence others and convince some people not to buy.

Stephen Fry's own response to such a notion was interesting in that he plays down his expertise and knowledge on such topics as that of "an enthusiastic, passionate amateur". This attitude is not dissimilar to those participating in usability testing who I find often blame themselves for the difficulties they encounter, citing inexperience or stupidity. This could not be further from the case.

There seems to be an expectation that reviews of new gadgets should be conducted by experts who have an extensive knowledge and understanding of the latest technology. I disagree. I believe that those people who are likely to use the Blackberry every day and represent the common user, like Stephen Fry, should be the ones to road test and review it. This is likely to provide the most honest and accurate account on how the technology will fare when released. After all, if one person has a problem with the text input, the chances are so will someone else.

If more people were to base their decision to buy from the comments of enthusiasts such as Stephen Fry, then perhaps this will result in companies refining future generations of the device and improving on them. A poor performance in Blackberry Storm sales might be bad for the company but reinforces the importance of user-testing during the design phase and not just post-launch, something I'm sure RIM are very aware of.

Are User Centred Design (UCD) and Agile processes a ‘half baked’ methodology?

Including UCD into an Agile methodology can be faced with it’s own challenges. The process is fast-paced and can be in danger of becoming internally focused on the team's ideas and creativity. This could results in the neglect of the customers business goals. This means that the UCD team will have to be willing to be flexible with the exploratory methods and be willing to adapt to meet immediate needs or changes that are likely to occur. Many changes are likely to occur in parallel to the development where constant evaluation, modelling, testing, and feeding back proof of concepts to the design/development team will be required e.g. any new functionality that is introduced will have to be outlined and designed against the persona and user tested (low fidelity paper prototyping).
Outside the development process, the usability team can conduct research and get ahead of the remodelling to accumulate user input and workflows for the next stage in the development, which again can be fed back to the design team as soon as possible to keep pace with the development process.

For many organisations, moving from the traditional Waterfall project process to Agile may pose certain challenges to traditional UCD methods such as:
- the difficultly in doing formal usability testing on complete scenarios early because they may not be formulated in their entirety.
- the need to change some of your tool sets and UCD methods for delivering designs to be quicker such as creating lower-fidelity wireframes.
- educating clients who are accustomed to the waterfall process, will find it difficult to accept and signoff what might be perceived to be a ‘half baked’ design.
All these are mitigated by good processes and frequent communication. Again the key is to present information as soon as possible so changes get scheduled into future ‘sprints’.

It is also important to identify ahead of time milestone points where user testing of the prototype product could happen in addition to the technology being used to support it.
If planned correctly it is possible to make sure that the UCD methodologies are part of the Agile development process and support client requirements.

WCAG 2.0 Training course

The new WCAG guidelines will be released soon and it is essential that people are aware of the key differences from the old ones in order to remain accessible to those with disabilities.

User Vision have designed a special ½ day training course to help people understand the new guidelines and how they differ from WCAG 1.0. The course will give delegates a solid overview of WCAG 2.0 and how they can be implemented to best effect.

The course is run by resident accessibility expert Mark Palmer. Mark is a fantastic trainer who will ensure that you not only fully understand the topic but also thoroughly enjoy the training. The course is being held in London on the 4th of December. Early booking is strongly advised for this very popular course.

New Public Sector Training Course

Organisations in the pubic sector have to ensure their users have a positive online experience just as much as any corporate organisation does. User Vision have designed a specifically tailored training course to help those in the public sector improve their online offering, the course will run on the 25th of November in Edinburgh and 27th of November in central London.

By the end of the course delegates will feel confident in implementing a usability strategy into their own operations and will have the skills and knowledge to identify key user experience issues and how to rectify them.

The course will be run by public sector usability specialist Rob van Tol as well as User Vision’s Managing Director Chris Rourke. The two experienced and knowledgeable trainers will ensure your understanding of the topic and make you feel at ease throughout the day.

Sign up for the Edinburgh course
Sign up for the London course

The human phone booths of Colombia

I have recently been in Colombia, South America where I spoke about usability for successful e-government at Andicom, Latin America's largest a telecoms and technology conference organised by the country's IT research organisation CINTEL. In the free time I had in Bogotá I couldn't help but notice the many people on the street offering "llamadas 200 pesos / minuto" or calls on mobile phones for about £0.07 per minute. It was clearly a thriving business in busy Bogotá, and many of these walking phone booths had 3 or more mobile phones in use at one time. As shown in the photo below, they usually had the phones attached to themselves through small chains to help ensure their phone did not get carried away with the caller.





The practice was a good example of a competitive market in practice as one man shown was charging just 150 pesos per minute, undercutting his rivals by 25% and gaining a lot of business as a result. He is also ready for a volatile market - he has a series of signs bound together so that he can quickly change the price should he see that other phone time sellers change their rates.

One of the interesting facts that I picked up while there was regarding the mobile phone penetration rate among Colombians which was estimated to be about 75 to 80% based on the number of phones sold compared to the population. Clearly practices such as the sharing of mobiles will call some of the data into question, and also remove some of the expectations that we might have about a very personal relationship with our phones for storing data, viewing favourite web pages, sending text messages etc. It also will be beneficial to have relatively simple handsets mobile phone usability should not be a factor for simply making a phone call.

The practice shows a great deal of initiative in the bustling economy of Colombia, a country I would highly recommend for a visit - wonderfully friendly people, and interesting history.

Can you still maintain harmony and be platform free?

I recently completed research for a platform independent application that can be accessed by the iPhone, PC and digital TV. What became apparent very quickly was that the harmony of the user experience across all platforms was not consistently positive as the application lacked continuity when viewed on different platforms e.g. the TV programme search did not perform or behave the same as the PC search, it was not as flexible. In addition, the handset used to control the TV programme selection proved cognitively challenging as the handset did not offer the standard affordances displayed on “standard” interactive TV handsets. To elicit positive emotional and behavioural responses we have to understand the ergonomics of the hardware that the application is accessed by. In addition, the user needs to understand the application and the relationship between each device and expects a positive user experience irrespective of the device through which the application is being accessed. Each platform has various affordances and capabilities, from buttons and icons that are ergonomically hardwired so there are limitations at each stage in the development process. None the less, the user expects the same level of consistency in the integrative quality of the elements. To create a consistent positive experience, the user expects to encounter the same level of consistency and interaction between the:

- Aesthetic style, brand and quality - does the product have an emotive visual tone of voice that appeals to younger or older audience segmentation? Is the design culturally meaningful?
- The story – the user needs to assimilate very quickly, what is the purpose of the service and its benefits? Can I use it?
- The performance and primary usage capabilities – the time taken to interact with the application via each platform and complete the primary tasks.

More research is required to identify and understand how the users would expect to manipulate the application using a TV remote control and mobile devices such as the iphone (which incidentally only supports the Safari browser agent). To provide a positive interaction and increase the brand credibility, the relationship between the TV remote and the TV interface has to offer good affordances to increase the efficiency of primary tasks such as searching and scheduling a programme. To maintain the positive user experience, the application should also offer the same level of continuity, functionality and flexibility in design so that the same level of satisfaction can be achieved across all devices.

From post-its to design patterns

Design patterns are generally referred to as a way to support developers and help them to reuse proven solutions and solve common design problems while composing patterns to create reusable designs that can be mapped to different platforms. Without this, cross-platform application designers are not properly applying design solutions or taking full benefit of the power of patterns as reuse blocks, resulting in poor performance, poor scalability, and poor usability. Furthermore, the designer may "reinvent the wheel" when attempting to implement the same design for different platforms based on their own understanding of the system application requirements. Design patterns are a vehicle for capturing and reusing good designs while detailing a motivating example on how design patterns can be composed to create a generic application design. In addition, patterns are a suitable means for mapping an application to new platforms while maintaining its intrinsic quality attributes and providing consistency across all platforms. Attempting to define design patterns from a development perspective is a complex task but what about the users? How do we define design patterns from a user experience perspective?

An example may be by talking to the representative user groups, asking specific questions about the product concerned to help identify the user’s motivations and emotional response to the product in question. Following a series of interviews or diary accounts of the user journey, it is then possible to transcribe each individual interview highlighting the motivations (verbs) and the emotions highlighted by each user. In doing so what you will start to see is the emergence of a pattern highlighting common motivations and emotive responses. Carrying out a cluster analysis of the common verbs and emotive references will not only inform the developers of the components required during the early stages of the analysis but more importantly help to build the personas of each representative user group and provide insights to the taxonomy or classifications of information categories required from an interface perspective. This does not need lots of technology or technical understanding just good observation and a pile of post-it notes to help build up a pattern and identify the common elements of the user experience that need to be created or resolved.

Open Office: Coping with Online Stampedes

Yesterday Open Office launched it's major upgrade to its open source Microsoft Office bashing office productivity suite, version 3, and it's servers crashed in the stampede to download it. I know, I was part of that stampede.

Now this is not to have a pop at Open Office. Quite the contrary. After all, Open Office is a vast open source community undertaking, backed by Sun and IBM. It would be disingenuous, if not actually positively ungrateful to complain that when I tried to download my FREE copy, all I got was this screen …



I could complain that Apache error message is hardly suitable for public consumption: ContentHelmNoodle anyone? But that's hardly Open Office's fault.

But actually, this is a story of doing the right thing, when you're best estimates gets trampled by the crush of wildly keen users.

Step 1 Apologise
Even though Open Office are giving us a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation tool, drawing program and maths tools for FREE, they still apologised. Of course, this is tricky to do on your website, as it's been clobbered by user demand. So you have to get a statement out to the news agencies, such as this article in The Register. Plus send emails to your user base:

All,

We must apologize. OpenOffice.org 3.0 is proving immensely,
staggeringly popular. And our site is down as a result. While we fix
things, we urge you to be patient and try again later on tonight,
tomorrow, this week. It will still be there.

Oh, by popular, we mean it: figure hundreds of thousands of users,
mostly Windows users, but also Mac OS X and Linux and Solaris users,
all trying to download it all at once.....

Cheers, and thanks for your patience,
Louis

Step 2 Clear the Boards
If you're being swamped, stop trying to swim elegantly, and concentrate on just staying afloat. Or in web terms, pull down your usual site and focus all your bandwidth on doing the one user task nearly everyone is wanting: to get their hands on the new release.
























Step 3 Return to Normal
Eventually things will stabilise and in a couple of days OpenOffice.org will return to normality.

Step 4 Tell the Story
Some people may grumble, but actually a bit of mad rush creates some incident, a marketing story to tell.

The stampede demonstrates the power of open source movement, and its continued momentum. Did Microsoft servers collapse after the release of the last version of MS Office? Not so far as I'm aware.

Stories such as this, in ZDet, talks of the opportunity for Sun and IBM and Open Office, as the global financial crisis puts more pressure on IT budgets. So having ordinary users mob the release of Open Office 3 can only add to its kudos, and the manner in which Open Office responded was just right.

e-Commerce Customer Advisor: Does My Bum Look Big In This?

On telly, Trinny and Susannah are a couple of cruel-to-be-kind school prefects, prodding and bullying their semi-willing fashion victims to accept certain fashion verities, such as:

• The 70s and/or 80s are over
  
• You're looking at 41, so stop dressing like 21
• Tatty is not the same as fashionably distressed
• Black is not the only colour
• Magic knickers can transform your body shape

Now watching someone being ritualistically humiliated is all part of the schadenfreude that is the joy of Reality TV. But in the privacy of your own PC, who would be masochistic enough to want to be jibbed and criticised?

Well the designers of Trinny and Susannah's Body Shape Calculator, which has been created to support the online store of Littlewoods Direct, understood this, and have taken a slightly softer approach.



Which is good … but what about The Men? Well, at last, we victims of being banished to the basement or the top floor have an opportunity to dress à la mode.

Being a fine figure of a man, let me share with you the experience … Step one, pop in those vital statistics. Remember, if you lie at this point, you're only lying to yourself. So here's mine.



Somewhat prescriptively, you have to have to admit to being either big, short or skinny. Whatever happened to hunky? Anyhow, so let's pretend I'm "big" then.

"Ask" Trinny and Susannah's advice brings up a set of outfits, classified by casual, smart and formal, with a set of style tips.



Apparently I should wear my top buttons undone to create a slimming vee-neck, and having a jacket with big pockets will divert attention from my hypothetical big tum. While puffa jackets are a huge no-no.

What you are meant to do, after browsing around and poking about the various bits of advice, some of which is the same and some of which differs per outfit, is select some of the items offered to have a look at them. So I selected some trousers.



Now my selection was a bit random, as I couldn't really see the trousers very clearly in the thumbnails offered. And as you can see, when looking at the trousers all together, you still cannot really see them especially well either.

But the most surprising thing is the sudden appearance of the "go to basket" button. Whooooaaaaa! Steady on! I was just having some fun with Trinny and Susannah, trying out stuff and getting some tips and suddenly I'm being asked to buy stuff!? This is not what Jared Spool called a Seducible Moment.

I don't know

• if this is available in my size
• if this is available in my colour
  (I'm autumn colours, apparently)
  
• how this will go with other things
• what brand is it
• what material is it made of
  
• even that most basic of purchasing questions: how much does it cost!
• or most basic of all, what does it really look like, aside from a small 4cm high (on my screen) single angle photo
  

So I'm really not disposed to put any of these things into any thing that implies a commitment to buy. Now as it happens, the "basket" gives me an opportunity to answer some of these questions.



Though you'll notice that the price still isn't shown, until you select your waist, inside leg and colour.

You'll also notice that the basket includes no images at all now. So which trouser detail is which?

You can, one-by-one, click on the enlarge button, which pops up a new window, which is 7½cm high (just less than half the screen height) … hardly eye-popping in your face.

So you're chief guide is a set of terse descriptions, such as "Brushed cotton twill trouser with plain bottoms" and "Bedford cord western style pants with zip-fastening".

Oh yes, Bedford cord … I think we all know what that is, er?

So, what started off as a playful piece of fun, and a rather nice attending to men's fashion needs (so often neglected to a poor second place), suddenly became a jarring sales experience, in which I was being asked to commit to buying things I didn't properly understand. Which is a shame.

Maybe I should try Gok Wan instead…

Play.com shopping process misses a trick

As the nights grow longer, the temperature drops and Christmas begins to close in, this year I decided to try and be organised and start my Christmas shopping early. Doing my shopping online has always been attractive because it allows me to get a few bargains and avoid going out in the cold weather. This way I can browse at my leisure from home, have everything delivered to a convenient address and it doesn't even have to cost me a penny extra in postage in some cases!

After a bit of browsing I decided the best option would be to shop with Play.com and noticed that they proudly display their recent title of 'Best Online Retailer 2008' which was awarded to them by Which? This certainly is warranted as I have shopped with Play many times and always enjoyed the experience. However, I have recently noticed that they have made one of the biggest mistakes in retailers terms when it comes to their shopping process. It appears that the site will not save any items added to your basket over a long period of time. Twice now I have added some Christmas presents and decided to go back the next day to either add some more or checkout and pay. Both times I have logged in to find my basket empty, leaving me with no other choice than to add each item all over again. This seems like a lost opportunity in increasing sales. It is not uncommon for customers to browse over a period of time, adding items each time they return to the site.

Grocery shopping sites in particular are aware of these customer habits and all ensure that any items added to a basket are saved. Without doing this, customers are less likely to remember which items they had in their basket from previous visits and as a result, unlikely to spend as much. From a personal point of view I find it irritating to have to add items each time I log in and although I will still shop with Play, this could put other customers off. It seems that no matter how successful online retailers are, there is always room for improvement!

Forms behaving badly

I recently completed a usability study on a bespoke software application. All participants involved in the study preferred to navigate the form input screen using the tab key. Users quickly discovered that the navigation was restricted due to the form “behaving unexpectedly”. When tabbing from one input field to another and attempting to select an item from a drop down menu list, the page reloaded and posted back to the server as the focus moved on to each menu list option. As a result, the system performance was reduced dramatically and users were unable to navigate efficiently to the next input field until the previous “postback” actions were complete.

It would appear that on further inspection that JavaScript “postback” events had been attached to drop down list boxes which produced the unexpected behaviour e.g. when the user tabbed through a menu listbox and used the up–down arrow keys to navigate through the list, a JavaScript “onchange” event fired every time the focus moved onto another item in the list, causing the form to “postback” to the server unintentionally and unnecessarily. As a result the system speed and performance was reduced as was the task efficiency.

If a drop down list selection is required, position a button next to the drop down list so that the ‘”postback” event is only carried out once the item has been selected from the menu list. This will prevent many “postback” actions being sent back to the server every time the focus changes from one list menu item to the next. This will also reduce the response times endured by the user each time the focus moves onto the next list item and as a result increase the task completion and satisfaction rates.

Google, your website and usability

When people I meet find out what I do for a living (after I've convinced them it's a real job), I often find myself in a discussion about Google. It's a good aspiration to be as simple as Google but I often find those in charge of websites can miss the point.

"I'd love to have just a search field and nothing else on our home page" Really, why?

Google is a search engine. Its usability comes from prioritising its main purpose, search. This is the lesson you should take from Google. Prioritise the main purpose and don't let the lesser stuff get in the way.

Of course you can now get Google for your own website or intranet with Google Enterprise Search and Google Site Search. This can add usability benefits to your website through:

• Familiarity with the presentation of results pages
• Good search algorithm, spelling correction and whatnot

But it can also introduce a few issues as well. You see, when you get Google on your site or intranet its tempting to shout about it. In June 2006 the 4th most popular search term on a certain Blue Chip company's intranet search was 'World Cup'.

Why? Because the company had just bought Google Enterprise for a substantial amount of money. And now they wanted to shout about it. So in the place where the boring old unbranded search box used to be, there was suddenly a search box with a Google logo. Employees saw the Google logo and thought it was an internet search. No doubt they were slightly let down by the results.

People see the Google logo and assume it's a Google internet search. The same issue can arise on internet sites too. Since joining User Vision I've carried out usability testing on 3 websites that have used Google Site Search. In all of those studies at least one participant has said something like.

"I'll just do a search. Oh I don't want to use that [Google site search] because that's the internet. I just want to search this site."

Voila, all the benefits of using Google's algorithm, layout etc. etc. is denied to that person. Why? Because there is a Google logo on the search box. It says 'site search' too, but that doesn't matter because they didn't read it. They just looked at the logo.

You might be quite chuffed that you are using Google on your website but your site users are less concerned. They are not persuaded to use search because they see the logo.

I have never heard a test participant say "I'm not going to try to search because it's probably going to be rubbish". Well actually I have, but that's because they had used it before on an earlier task.

If you're using Google search on your website or intranet I suggest you ditch the logos if you can.

How to design a nav bar - Pas comme ça

What is it with hovering navigation menus? Do people who design them ever try to use them themselves? Have a go at navigating the Le Monde website and share my pain. I'm on a train just now so am using a mouse pad. This is making it worse.

Ahhhhhhhh!

Usability and the gaming industry

I was asked of ways to improve usability within the games industry. Whilst I could think of lots of elements of games that frustrated me, I wondered whether applying usability principles would make the game too easy to use. Who wants to beat the baddie within 2 seconds? A game should be a challenge to a gamer, otherwise they will complete it in no time, or give up as it's not representing the challenge that they had hoped for. Rather than usability, it's all about playability and the challenge.

Parts of the game makeup could have usability applied to it. Getting menu systems wrong could result in a frustrating experience rather than a totally engrossing one. Some games make it particularly difficult to navigate the basic menu options. e.g. Are you sure you want to quit the game? Yes/No. Which choice is highlighted? The fewer barriers there are for the gamer to become immersed, the better.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi looked into this feeling of immersion further and proposed the Flow theory. This has been applied to various fields to design better human experiences, including the gaming industry. When the challenge presented is greater than our abilities, we become anxious, and when the challenge is significantly less than that of which we are able, we become bored.
Source: http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/



So the challenge or playability seems like the opposite of usability, but it doesn't have to be. An engrossing gaming experience can be capsulated by identifying where the challenge is placed in a game. Other features of the game outside this area (e.g. menu screens, maps, choosing weapons) should assist the gamer to meet the challenge and this is where usability is placed within the games industry.

Playability, intuitiveness and challenging are ways to describe a truly great game. A sign of a truly great game is when you ask yourself "Where did the last 3 days go?"

I'm looking foward to seeing how the much hyped 'Little Big Planet' does this.

Self-serving Marks and Spencer

During a trip to the shops on my break, I decided to test the self-serve checkouts at my nearest Marks & Spencer. Although I have used these checkouts in the past at other Supermarkets, I do not shop as often at M&S so this was a new experience.

There is no doubt that much thought goes into the design of such machines to make it as easy as possible for people of all ages to operate these check-outs. This is demonstrated by my positive experience. However I had to wonder who decided to provide your larger denominations of change (£5, £10 notes) underneath the scanner, miles away from all the other payment options?
To the left, above carrier bags are several slots for credit cards, notes, coin change and receipt print-outs, so why not provide all your change in the same place? After spending a few seconds searching for my fiver, I was about ready to complain when a very helpful member of staff pointed out the whereabouts of my money. This suggested to me that I was not the first and wouldn't be the last to get confused by this set up.

It also proves the value in placing a member of staff at self-serve checkouts for any issues customers may have. It provides reassurance for less confident customers, encouraging those who have never used the system before to give it a try.

The results are in for the SQA

Last year the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) came under fire after launching a very unusable website for students to check their exam results. We commented at the time, in The Scotsman, that a series of usability tests would have identified the problems prior to launch and would have saved a great deal of bad publicity and prevented frustration and anger for tens of thousands of Scottish students.

I am always a happy chap when a bad situation turns good. In May this year a good friend of mine sat an SQA exam and has nervously been awaiting her results. At 8am this morning she received a lovely text from the SQA saying she had passed her exam. You see my friend had signed up to the new SQA results system whereby students could have signed up to receive their results by either text or email in addition to receiving their results via post. This year seems a far cry from the chaos of 2007 with around 25,000 students receiving their results in their preferred medium.

It is clear that the SQA have realised the problems from last year implementing positive change and developing a better, more usable way for students to get their results.

Students will always receive their exam results via post, but by offering additional methods such as email and text, gives people the chance to get their results a little earlier and in a way that suits them. Hopefully this will also prevent the average postman being lynched on the street by some stressed-out anxious students seeking their certificates.

Booking Festival tickets online has Fringe benefits.

There has been a lot of press recently on the difficulties the Edinburgh Fringe Festival have faced since launching their programme for this year. Firstly, the online booking system was delayed by a week or so. Then, last Friday the Scotsman reported that those customers who had used the site to buy online were finding out that they had been charged up to 6 times for the same tickets due to confusion with the purchase process.

My own experience with the site has matched that of the stories reported, as I am sure it has with many others. Recently, my partner tried to purchase tickets and was frustrated to find out that after selecting tickets and attempting to purchase them, he was presented with page informing him that an error had occurred but it was not possible to say if the purchase had gone through or not. To find out more we were advised to call the box office...

The box office were not able to conclusively say if we had purchased the tickets or not as they stated the booking was 'awaiting payment'. Did this mean the payment was in process from the bank, or the site had not received payment details? In the end we gave up and decided to watch for transactions on the account to see if any money was debited. So far nothing has materialised.

Since our experience, we have decided to do it the old fashioned way and physically go to the box office. However, it seems so archaic to resort to this strategy with all the technology at our fingertips. Sometimes it really is the easier option.

What is most alarming about this issue is that it's not a new problem. In 2004, User Vision wrote an article- The Show Must Go On(line) which examined the user experience of a selection of Edinburgh Festival sites. More recently my colleague and I revisited this issue to see where, if any improvements have been made in the full article, Booking festival tickets online has Fringe benefits. It appears that much still needs to be done to significantly improve the site's usability.

New Facebook: Usability research on a grand scale

Earlier this week, Facebook announced on their blog that after 6 months of dialogue with Facebook members, a new looking Facebook was being offered for everyone to use. The product manager for the new profile, Mark Slee, outlined the new features of the design and stressed that most changes were being implemented to make the site simpler and cleaner, which is always important when improving the usability of any site.

New features aside, the thing I liked most was the strategy Facebook are using to ensure that any changes are positive and meet users needs. At the moment, the new version is optional for those who want to try it. Happily, there is a link in the top right corner allowing users to switch back should they dislike using the new version. Additionally, next to that link is the opportunity to leave feedback. This will allow Facebook to capitalise on the massive audience they command on this social networking site and essentially generate usability testing on a grand scale. Other open source companies such as Mozilla have been using this strategy for a long time. Releasing beta versions of their Firefox browser and allowing volunteers to test it for bugs means that thousands of people can contribute to it without crippling Mozilla financially. It also means that feedback is gathered from as wide an audience as possible.

Once the final design is rolled out to every member, there will inevitably be those who will not like the change. Often when people get used to the way a website works, good or bad, they will rightly try to hold on to the system they knew. The key is providing a new design that shows users how much better a site can perform so that they come to realise how valuable it is, and eventually wonder how they ever managed before!

My hope is that Facebook are genuine in their quest for feedback and really listen to the comments sent to them. There is always the danger that they become possessive over their new design and fail to take on board constructive criticism. Perhaps in this case time will tell.

Crisis at another cash machine.

Following from Lorraine's blog about cash machines, I also had a near disaster with cash machines (ATMs) abroad.

I was in Canada earlier this year and using an ATM. I was surprised to find that the order of transaction was:

• I requested my money,
• my money was given,
• my cash card was then returned.

Thankfully, on each occasion that I walked away from the cash machine having taken my money but not waiting for my card, a kind person would point out my error.

The UK order of transaction is:

• I request money
• my cash card is returned,
• my money is given.

Personally, I see the UK process as much securer.

This goes to show that once we are used to a particular practice, we assume it's a given, familiarity of the process is built up. I too am in favour for championing the standardisation of ATMs internationally.

This got me thinking, cash machines and mobiles have similar numerical interfaces in the UK, but what about the calculator! Perhaps that's for another blog.

Accessibility (or lack of it) in action.

Having spent a large portion of yesterday browsing a large bookstore (part of a well known chain), my wife and I decided to go for a coffee in their in-store coffee shop (again part of a VERY well known chain).

Having enjoyed our coffee and fed our 9 month old son, we needed to go and change his nappy. As is often the case, the nappy changing facilities were located within the disabled toilet. I suppose this is a space issue, to allow room for buggies and prams etc.

Upon trying to get into the disabled toilet, we discovered it was locked. OK, so back through the two sets of doors to the coffeeshop to find out how to access the disabled toilet. That's two sets of doors to find out that the disabled facilities are locked and two further sets of doors to find out why. Four sets of doors.

We were then given an enormous, medieval looking key with what I can only describe as a dustbin lid attached (presumably in case you decide to steal it - although why you would do such a thing is beyond me). Back through the two sets of doors to the toilet and then once you are ready to leave it's back through the two sets of doors again to hand the key back. Eight set of doors and one case of being made to feel like a potential criminal later, the nappy was changed and we were on our way.

The whole experience was difficult enough for us, and there were two of us, both able-bodied. I shudder to imagine how difficult such a laborious process must be for someone in a wheelchair for example.

If the above process sounds ridiculous, that's because it is. However, many site designers place equally ludicrous obstacles in the path of disabled users every day. Web pages and site functionality are regularly made inaccessible to disabled users for one reason or another, leading to frustration and anger.

Many disabled users shop online, simply because it makes purchasing goods easier for them. When large high street stores implement accessibility hurdles in their stores similar to that which I've detailed above, it's easy to see the appeal.

Sadly, in some cases the online experience can be worse than the offline.

ITV Catch-up - part 2

A new day arrives and with it a new problem with ITV Catch-up. I spent all day yesterday and part of today staying away from news and sports media. Why? So that I didn't ruin the excitement of watching the Tour de France online. Yesterday's stage was ideal for Britain's Mark Cavendish to take that elusive stage victory.

I wanted to watch it with the same excitement as though it were live. Many of you will have done the same with football games.

When I got to the appropriate page I was greeted by the image below. Yes that's Mark Cavendish. He appears to be quite happy about something. I wonder what it could be?

Thanks ITV!

Le Tour Toujours - unless you're trying to watch it online

For those of you who aren't so sad, you spend all your time watching Big Brother, you may have noticed that the Tour de France is on just now. I'm a bit of cycling nut so I was trying to catch up on the 2nd stage online yesterday. I did this a lot last year without problem so expected it to be a breeze.

However this year I have to deal with ITV's new player. I'm not going to bore you with the reasons why the BBC iPlayer is much better. Mostly because the BBC have never covered the Tour in my lifetime, so I don't care how good their interface is on this occasion. I will say that 'Catch up' is a gazillion times better as a label than 'iPlayer' though.

This year we understandably need to endure some adverts ITV.com but the way ITV has handled this is pretty poor.

You see, I was watching a 2 hour programme and as you might expect I had connection problems and lost the programme altogether. Getting back to the part of the programme I wanted was a nightmare. The fast forward feature does not allow you to go to the exact part of the programme you want to watch. Instead it just skips to the next ad break.

It took me a while to work this out. The player then disables the fast forward controls while it plays the adverts. You then have to wait for them to finish before skipping to the next advertising break and then the next and so on. You need to watch a section of the programme to see if it is the bit you need and then skip again if it isn't. For a 2 hour programme this is more than a little annoying.

The thing with catch-up TV is that the content is such a big draw that you can wrestle with bad interfaces for hours just to watch it. I spent over 3 hours trying to watch 2 hour programme. By the time I got to see the end of the stage my girlfriend had already told me who won.

I'm still considering a suitable punishment for her.

Big Brother sets an accessibility task of it's own

Love it or loathe it, Big Brother recently returned to our screens. Those of you who haven't been watching it will probably be wondering why I should be writing about Big Brother in a blog which is primarily about usability and accessibility.

Quite simple really. One of the contestants is blind. Mikey Hughes from Kilwinning in Ayrshire is a radio presenter with RNIB's Insight Radio. Mikey is now featuring heavily in an advertising campaign by the RNIB which features a strapline along the lines of "Mikey will leave the house this summer. Thousands of blind people won't".

Curiously, the RNIB seem to have removed an earlier message on their site which said that Mikey had applied for Big Brother off his own back and would be taking unpaid leave from Insight Radio whilst he was in the house, presumably in case Mikey decided to walk around the house naked or get into fights with other housemates.

Instead, Mikey's time in the house has been enlightening for his fellow housemates. Granted, he has been patronised at times and in one particular instance was given a triangle to play as part of the Big Brother Orchestra, much to his disgust.

Only last week, Big Brother set housemates a new task. This task was to live life as a blind person for half a day. Housemates were paired off and took it in turns to be the blind person, wearing specially adapted goggles whilst the other housemate became their 'guide'.

Whilst some of the housemate failed to see the true purpose of this exercise and instead used it as an excuse to fool around and bash things with their canes, a number of the housemates sought advice from Mikey.

Mikey relayed his experiences both inside and outside of the house and in particular the issues he had with the cooker in the Big Brother house. The cooker in the house has a flat surface, flush with the worktop and Mikey revealed he'd nearly been burnt a few times as a result.

As this discussion continued, the implication of being totally blind finally dawned on the other housemates and Mikey's ability to interact with his environment without the benefit of sight was appreciated and admired.

Often we have the same experience when testing with blind users. Personally, I find screen reader software frustrating and cumbersome to use, so I am always stunned by the ease with which blind users can use the software and adapt to accessibility obstacles thrown in their way. Many of these obstacles are not as we expected. I'm sure that many of the housemates in the Big Brother house thought that the cooker was safe for Mikey because there was no open flame. It turns out that they were wrong.

Sometimes we can also make the wrong assumptions about how disabled users interact with the web. Regularly, we find that what would be considered classic accessibility issues are not accessibility issues at all because users have become so used to these problems that they have developed mechanisms to overcome them.

Only by spending time with disabled users, in a proper test environment, can we learn how they interact with the web, the problems they face and ultimately how to improve their online experience.

Web pages and mobile phones

Since the launch of the iPhone, there seems to be an increased buzz amongst the globalinterwebnetsuperhighway fraternity about web pages and mobile phones. A few things have changed (unsurprisingly) since we last wrote an article on this subject in 2005. For example:

• Most devices have an action key that allows you to perform the same function as a mouse click.
• Resolutions are higher and some screens are larger.
• With Wi-Fi phones, you can download large files without the huge expense.
• Many phones can store several gigabytes of information.

Opera 4 and iPhone Safari

Opera Mini 4 and Safari on the iPhone have effectively killed the idea of the handheld stylesheet. They want to behave like proper grown-up browsers and good luck to them.

But this doesn’t stop you sending them a site that is customised for them. Enter CSS3 and media queries, but that’s a whole new blog post that I’ll spare you from.

It doesn’t really make sense to stop supporting a standards compliant approach in favour of a CSS3 recommendation that does the same thing. Especially from Opera who are usually the ‘hair-splitters’ of web standards.

If you want to check out your website on Opera Mini, then try the Opera Mini Simulator. I’ll save you the hassle of trying to get it to look at itself. I tried it and it didn’t work.

I know I know, I should get out more.

Crisis at the cash machine

On our recent company trip to Barcelona for our strategy day meeting, I came to realise something about cash machines (ATMs)- they do not follow an international set of standards when it comes to design. Shortly after arriving in Barcelona, I realised that I would need to get more foreign currency to last the duration of my trip. I finally managed to find a cash machine in the airport after scrutinising it carefully as it looked more like a change machine than the cash machines I am used to. However, when I inserted my card, followed the instructions (in English), and input my PIN number, I was informed that the PIN was incorrect and my card was promptly rejected. This was extremely confusing to me as it was not a new card or a new PIN number. I tried another card which happened to have the same PIN number with the same result. In the end I put it down to a dodgy foreign machine and decided I would wait for another opportunity to get cash since I still had some Euros in my wallet.

The following day, I tried a more traditionally looking cash machine and followed the same procedure, only to be met with the same message. By now I was starting to get pretty irritated by Spanish technology and worried that I would not be able to get any cash. Just when I was about to give up, I happened to look down at the keypad while typing my PIN and realised that the layout of the number keys was different to the UK versions. Instead of starting 1, 2, 3 from the top left corner and working down as is typical with telephone keypads, the numbers started at the bottom left as is the same with keyboards. I suddenly realised I had been typing the wrong PIN; I had memorised where the numbers were on the pad and believing that I was being diligent, had been covering my actions with my other hand as many banks advise. As a result, I did not notice the configuration of the numbers assuming that they were the same worldwide.

So the moral of the story is that ATM interfaces should be standardised to prevent more people like myself from experiencing the same crisis at the cash machine.

The Bold and the Beautiful

In my view, bold text is an under-used tool on the web writer's toolbox. I'm not sure why it isn't used more. Perhaps it's aesthetics?

Many of the websites I test could be dramatically improved with some well chosen emboldening.

Even when a page has a massive wall of text for the user to climb, emboldening a few key words can act as the rope to help them over it.

My favourite example comes from Business Link. The page explains the advantages and disadvantages of buying a franchise. It's very well written but the use of bold text allows you to pick up the main points quickly.

If you want your web writers to use bold text more often, then your design could do a couple of things to encourage it.

1. Hyperlinks should look clearly different to normal bold text. This could be by using a clearly different colour. If your hyperlink colour looks similar to bold text then underline your hyperlinks.
2. Sub-headings should be bigger than normal text. The impact of both paragraph headings and bold text are reduced when they both look the same.
   

If bold text clashes with hyperlinks or headings then content writers are less-inlcined to use them.

Firefox 3. Takes a bit of getting used to.

Let's face it, the majority of the thousands of improvements bundled into the latest version of Firefox will be pretty much transparent to the average user. Most of these changes involve honing the engine under the bonnet to make Firefox faster or closing security loopholes, many of which we were unaware of in the first place.

As an avid Firefox fan over the years, I've seen many UI changes come and go. In fact, I have known Firefox since it was originally called Phoenix (and subsequently Firebird) so it would take a dramatic change in the interface to get me overly excited.

In fact, the interface looks disappointingly similar to that of previous releases. Some users may argue that consistency is key, however when I download a new release of software, I want to be in no doubt that I am using the new version. Firefox 3 is perhaps slightly too subtle in that respect (compare it to the complete UI overhaul of Opera 9.5 and you'll see what I mean).

Where Firefox 3 comes into it's own is with the new 'Smart Location Bar'. Initially I am sure this will appear to many users as perhaps being slightly too smart for it's own good. It's certainly confusing in comparison to how the location bar used to function.

Previously the location bar would merely hold details of the URL's you had visited. Now, typing anything into the location bar will create a flurry of activity in a dropdown menu displaying any sites from your history or bookmark list which contain the selected text either in their web address or page content.

Initially this is quite annoying as even entering a few letters creates such a furious, ever changing number of options to pop up but once you start to alter your way of thinking, the benefits of such a tool become really apparent.

Say for instance you saw a pair of Merrill trainers on a page somewhere but can't remember where. Merely typing 'Merrill' into the location bar will bring up a list of sites from your history which contain the term 'Merrill' in the page, hopefully allowing you to find the site you previously visited. It's certainly a radical departure from the norm and time will tell how popular this is. Tellingly, there seems to be no option in the browser settings to disable this.

Much will be written about Firefox 3 in the coming days and weeks and it will take time using the software for any of us to get a true feel for whether it is an improvement. We should all be thankful though that the Mozilla Foundation still seem to be striving for improvement.

New online census must be on good form

BBC Scotland recently reported that for the first time since the census began, people will have the opportunity to complete the questionnaire online. This sounds like a great idea for many reasons, most notably, that it will cut down the volume of paper required and remove the need for people to scan paper questionnaires by hand. However, I hope that this journey into the digital world does not cause more problems than it solves. When I think of the last time the nation was asked to adopt a new way of providing information, the Scottish election in 2007 springs to mind. Although this system was still paper based, it does demonstrate the severe consequences that can occur when people are not given appropriate advice.

If the form is not designed with the users in mind, the results could mean inaccurate or incomplete data. Insufficient help and advice in completing the form could be a major reason for this happening. Good practice suggests that any form should clearly provide format assistance to the left of the field and provide advice throughout the process.
A consequence of not doing this effectively could mean that many people revert back to the old paper method.

The fact that the next census is still 3 years away is encouraging because this is adequate time to design and test the forms with users to pre-empt any possible issues that could arise BEFORE the system is rolled out.

In the article, Registrar General Duncan Macniven stated that the benefits of using such a system were provided by studying the approach of other countries. I just hope that they also study the problems that they encountered in order to avoid any future disasters.

Hilary Lister. Assistive technology in action.

Hilary Lister, a quadriplegic sailor from Kent, today sets out on a 3 month journey round the coastline of Britain and Ireland in her specially adapted sailing boat. Hilary, 36, will control the boat using a specially designed sip and puff mechanism and the journey looks like being a test of the adaptability of the technology and the determination of Hilary herself.

The full story can be found here.

In the accessibility industry we are used to thinking of assistive technology in very limited terms. I know that in my case, I never really considered the power of a simple sip and puff switch much beyond actually navigating a website. We can sometimes become blinkered and end up thinking of assistive technology purely in terms of navigating websites.

The overwhelming irony of Hilary's story is of course that whilst she may be able to navigate a rugged coastline in all weathers using this technology, many disabled people using similar assistive technology struggle to complete basic web forms or purchase goods over the internet. Not because of failings in the technology but failings in the way the site is built.

The creation of Hilary's purpose built boat was quite clearly an expensive project. Implementing basic web accessibility on the other hand is not. Accessibility audits regularly find the same issues across many different sites, with most of these issues requiring only a few simple tweaks to the underlying markup to make a major difference for disabled users and assistive technology.

Common issues include images missing alternative text, form fields without adequate labels and functionality which is lost when scripting is disabled or unavailable in the browser.

It certainly should make us all sit up and think that if something as complex and dangerous as navigating rough coastal waters can be made accessible then there is no excuse at all for providing your customers with an inaccessible web experience.

Who pays the price for poor usability? For air tickets it could be you!

There was an intriguing article I saw the other day in the free Metro newspaper that should sharpen the minds of regular online travel bookers. It seems that customers are being made to pay for their mistakes caused by the poor usability of airline websites.

According to the article “Passengers are being forced to foot the bill for mistakes made during online flight reservations – even if the fault is down to the airline.” It cites examples such as a father who bought four tickets but was told he must pay an extra £340 when it was discovered his name was on all four. He was refused a refund.

It is highly likely that the root cause of this man’s error, and similar ones, was an unusable interface or process that led him to submit such clearly incorrect details. The fact that airlines are not acknowledging mistakes caused by their websites, but rather pushing it back at the customers to pay for their mistakes is a sad state of affairs. Caveat emptor indeed!

This clearly is not going to help their customer relations and will likely leave the cause of the problem unresolved. To make matters worse, I would bet that in many cases the mistakes caused by the interface do not get reported back to the team maintaining and designing the website. This is the result of ‘silo ‘ effect, common in many businesses, where one team does not communicate potentially important information to another internal team. There are many reasons why this happens, but in my experience breaking down these internal barriers and enabling relevant information to be communicated is one of the most effective ways to institutionalise continuous usability improvement.

I book a lot of air and (preferably) rail travel for my job and can see the risk points in most booking processes. We also perform usability testing for a large global airline and other travel companies and I know that booking travel online can be very tricky especially for the less typical booking scenarios, such as postal and billing addresses being different, using discount vouchers, changing bookings, or booking tickets through air miles. I have made mistakes (such as selecting the wrong travel dates) but fortunately have managed to not be charged for these. I will try to be more careful in the future.

Just about the only way to justify the hardline stance that airlines seem to be taking to user mistakes is if they committed to invest the money they gained this way into improving the usability of their websites. Now that would be a radical approach.

National Express East Coast - online Numberwang

The National Express East Coast website has received a bit of stick recently from us usability folks. It has some nice features in my opinion. Not least the feature that allows you to play Numberwang when trying to make a change to your ticket.

The form for amending a journey asks for a ticket number. This seems like a pretty natural thing to ask for. But like me, a lot of people pick their tickets up from a FastTicket machine just before they travel. So we don't have a ticket number. This is where your Numberwang skills come in to play.

You can't get past the form without entering a ticket number and you can't change your ticket over the phone. So what do you do? I tried to put my booking reference number into the box, but it was too long. I also tried to leave it blank. No such luck.

When I phoned the nice people (and they are very nice) at National Express East Coast I was told to "simply" enter 12345 into the form field for the ticket number.

Now if I'd been a little better at Numberwang, I'd have had little problem. I blame myself.

The penny finally drops for accessible US paper currency

The US treasury is now strongly considering changing the size of paper currency after a sustained appeal and legal action from the blind and partially sighted community in America. A Federal appeals court supported the claims that the same size for $1, $5, $10 and higher denomination bills was a barrier for blind and partially sighted citizens and visitors, and it is likely that the printing presses will eventually be changed.

As an American citizen living in the UK, I can only say “It’s about time.” Even before becoming involved in accessibility & usability, I recall immediately seeing the sense in distinguishing bills with different sizes and colours the first time I saw British and European money. I remain impressed by this system every time I see blind users here or in Europe relatively easily distinguishing the right note for paying at a counter.

Even though blind and partially sighted Americans can employ workarounds with the current system (folding corners of their “greenbacks” or putting different denominations in different pockets are common strategies) it is still highly inconvenient and a con man’s dream.

Although no changes will happen before my next visit to the US (there is understandable inertia in changing the printing systems for the world’s biggest economy, not to mention the preceding legal tussles) I do look forward to seeing the different sizes and colours to the US Bills.

The importance of homepage usability design

After reading statements made by Jakob Neilsen in the BBC article ‘Web users are getting more ruthless’, I was surprised to hear that only 25% of people travel to a website via the homepage. With the power of search engines such as Google becoming ever more prominent, it seems obvious that any activity conducted online will involve a search engine at some point. As a direct result, visitors are empowered to navigate directly to the desired webpage and often bypass the homepage altogether. Following this news I began to wonder, is the usability of the homepage as important as it once was and are we focussing too much attention to this page if many people are unlikely to see it?

My thoughts are that the homepage is still important as it conveys a lot about the company it represents. Those visitors who may not initially see the homepage at the start of their journey will still regard it as the central point of navigation once deep inside the website and will therefore have expectations on how it should look and perform. Although 75% of visitors bypass the homepage, how many of those find what they are looking for on the page provided by the search engine? What do visitors do next when they cannot find what they are looking for? In this situation, navigation and homepage design become particularly important to visitors. Suggesting that more research is required to provide evidence to support or refute Nielsen’s claims.

In tests that User Vision have undertaken in the past, a different approach has been conducted to take into account a user’s journey to a website as well as their journey through the website. In these cases, participants were asked to start a task from a blank page or a search engine of their choice. Conducting usability tests in this way has been extremely beneficial because it increases the realism of the test and provides greater insight into the user journey. Although this method can add time to a test and a proportion of that time will inevitably be spent searching for the pages you are trying to test, overall the benefits make it worthwhile. In addition, the evidence from Neilsen supports the idea that testing in this way is becoming increasingly necessary. Therefore companies commissioning usability testing in the future should seriously consider allowing time to test in this way as it gives greater insights into how people find their site.