1. Speak clearly: use direct and simple language.
2. Make it clear where someone is in the experience and what their choices are. Make the choices distinct from each other.
3. Reduce work on the user's part wherever you can. Less to think about, with fewer clicks, keeps them in the flow.

These are important points so let’s consider them in more depth.

Speak clearly: use direct and simple language.
This is the basic tenet of marketing. If your message isn’t understood then it isn’t effective. Consider your target audience and make sure that the messaging and other informational content is targeted correctly. For example, I recently participated in a usability study for a game playing web site targeted at 8-11 year olds. It wouldn’t make sense for the language used to be judged based on whether an adult could easily understand the information/instructions given on the site, the yard stick by which we measured was grade 3-6 English.

Make it clear where someone is in the experience and what their choices are. Make the choices distinct from each other.
Have you ever participated in an online survey or signup for service and have answered seemingly endless pages of questions? If there is no % complete or page 1 of 5 indicators then it can be very frustrating to know how much longer the process is going to take. What about breadcrumb navigation? Allowing your users to see where they are navigationally on the site enables them to backtrack and choose alternative locations easily.

Showing users all the choices might be as simple as expandable navigation on the site showing all the sub-menus under the menus, or might be simply be a list of all games available on the site (back to my game playing web site example). Choices should be distinct and understandable enough that the user is easily able to identify which choice applies to them.

For example, the Apple iPod Store allows users to shop for accessories by iPod type. This allows users to make a choice that is clear to them and then shows them appropriate products. It even allows users to select obsolete iPods. No confusion there. Compare this to the HP store’s menu of brands “HP Pavillion, HP Pavillion Media Center, HP Pavillion Slimline, Presario” or their “High Performance, Entertainment and multimedia, Everyday Computing” menu. Not as meaningful when you are trying to buy a computer that needs to run certain applications, have a minimum spec, or you have multiple needs. (In HP’s defence they do have other menus to select from).

Reduce work on the user's part wherever you can. Less to think about, with fewer clicks, keeps them in the flow.
This seems simple but is surprisingly difficult for many web sites to do (at least based on the fact they aren’t doing it!). A great example of a search engine doing this is Ask X. Let’s say you are looking reviews of the Nokia 6600 cell phone. While you are typing in your search query “Nokia”, a list is being developed trying to guess your search term. As soon as you get to “no” the term “nokia” is now in your list. You can click on the term you want as soon as you see it in the list or keep on typing. If I type continue typing and get to “nokia” now “nokia 6600” is in my list. Let’s say I select that, I get my regular results but also the list is now showing me ways to narrow my search and one of them is “nokia 6600 review”. Exactly what I was looking for.

Now let’s look at a company doing it wrong (this is a common example). A company advertises a new product on TV. They’ve spent lots on the commercial production and have bought some great spots in prime time. Maybe they’ve even supplemented the commercial with some magazine print ads. They’ve even put a call to action at the end of their ad, go to http://www.website.com/. So you’re interested in the product and you go to http://www.website.com/, but you can’t find any mention of the product they were advertising. What’s up with that? Well in this case, the company hasn’t identified this product as something you might be looking for on their site and, as a result, haven’t built in anything into the site that can minimize the amount of work needed to find out about the product. It is amazing that this can happen, but it does, everyday. Not a good user experience.

Here’s an example, I want to find out about the new D40 Nikon Digital SLR Camera, maybe look at the specs or get a brochure. So I go to the Nikon website, http://www.nikon.com/. Now I have to select Consumer Products. Now I have to select Photographic Equipment. Oops, no sign of any cameras, now I have to select Canada (silly me!). Now I’m looking at a flash video of the new D80 Camera, but I wanted the D40…. So I select Skip video. Another menu, now I select, Digital Cameras. Ok, but hang on, these are all compact cameras, so now I select Digital SLR Cameras. Hooray, I finally see the D40 and select it. Now I’ve got the info I need, but wait, 7 steps to get the info I needed about this brand new product, and NOTE, there was no search option to skip through the navigation. Shouldn’t this have been easier? Shouldn’t Nikon have realized that it’s new camera should have been at the forefront of the site, not buried 6 steps down?

Conclusion
While user experience and web site usability is an interesting topic it cannot be considered in isolation. While the three recommendations made by Michael Ferguson are valuable, the first step is to determine your target audience and their intent before you are able to assess whether a user experience is a good one.

Marina Garrison
Research Manager
Marketing Monitor by Enquiro
Enquiro Full Service Search Engine Marketing
Search Tank
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