I was visiting my parents yesterday at their new apartment in an assisted-living facility. Mom's broken hip last month has kept her from getting out much and so Carolyn did some online shopping with her. The excursion through the Land's End system had both of them lost in no time. Although it was clear to me, an IT professional, screens and menus had too many options and no clear overview of where you stood in the process and what was expected next.
We also checked out Dad's AOL e-mail account. The screen shot at left says it all--no wonder at 90 he can't navigate e-mail anymore. There are ads everywhere, dozens and dozens of links, multiple toolbars, multiple nested windows, multiple close buttons, lack of overall pattern, lack of focus, conflicting use of color. The interface tries to give you everything at once from a single screen. My company's internal webpage uses the same strategy and the result is that I hardly ever visit it.
I see the same thing with cell phones and note that some companies are producing phones with large numerals, simple interfaces, and clear access to the basic functions. With the folks, we stuck with a basic Verison phone and have not changed it in three years--probably never will. Same thing goes with TV remotes--some engineer thought that everyone of those 53 buttons was necessary.
Then there's Google, the epitome of simplicity. It does one thing and it does it brillantly. Given the comparison between AOL (or Yahoo!) and Google, it occurs to me to present a superficial look at CMS homepages. The following are all 1024x768 screen captures.
Double-click on an image to see the full-sized screen capture.
(Continued below after the mysterious gap. Gotta figure out what Blogger is doing with table tags and vertical spacing.)
I'll come back to this topic soon for two important reasons:
- As baby-boomers age, usability for the elderly and accessibility for the disabled and disadvantaged will become more important (as if we shouldn't be watching out for those populations no matter how small their demographic footprint).
- As the world, especially developing nations come to rely more on cell phones, simplicity of operation, clarity of function, i18n features, and ease of use on mobile devices will become increasingly needed.
Next week I'll go beyond simple first impressions and dig into the
numbers that capture some aspects of usability. Stay tuna'd....
5 comments:
Plone.net has a horrible look!
It's one of the ugliest Plone-sites I can think of. It looks like my grandma's old carpet.
You'll note that PloneMetrics uses an "old carpet" patterned background. Guess we have a difference of opinion on the aesthetic merits. I think Plone.net looked better when it had the original "IT team" photo banner. Take a look at http://plone.org/documentation/tutorial/creating-plone-themes/footer-styles. BTW, did Limi design the Plone.net skin or just write the tutorial?
At any rate, I'll stand by my usability assessment--Plone.net does its job very well and its not blue.
There is a new plone.org design on its way, which looks more 2009 than 1999.
Always good to give attention to usability. I'm not interested in the aesthetic debates, but being able to see a page well and find what one is looking for is one thing all websites need to do. I just can't wait for the new plone.org design to come out...
One correction: your first link should say plone.org, not .net.
Cheers,
Chris (cjj | ifpeople.net)
Thanks for catching that, Chris. Change made :-)
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