03/10/10
As part of my research, I've been doing research into website usability. Jakob Nielsen's website (http://www.useit.com/) provides advice on making websites more user friendly and contains lists such as the 10 most common mistakes of website design (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html). This list includes things such as having websites with a fixed font size, something which is common to most websites due to conveniance, but which can be a problem, particularly to older users; it also warns against using anything on the website that looks like an advertisement, for example banner ads.
Nielsen claims that advertisements such as banner ads are ignored by web users because they know that they are advertisements. One of the websites I researched (the Kerrang! website) used banner ads, and I felt that this detracted from the site itself. For this reason, I think I am unlikely to use anything that looks like a banner ad, even if it isn't actually an advertisement, in my website.
Few of the websites I looked at had a changeable font size. I think this is less important when your target audience is teenagers as older people are more likely to struggle with reading smaller fonts than younger people. It's still something to consider however as people of all ages can have seeing difficulties.
Nielsen's research into teenage responses to websites is also useful (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/teenagers.html), it warns that teenagers, like older people, do not like small font sizes and dislike large amounts of text on a webpage. It warns against boring websites, providing a list of interactive features such as forums, message boards, games, quizzes, and online voting to keep teenagers interested. These are features which I have seen on some of the websites that I have researched, such as online voting on the bliss website and games on the E4 website. I thought that these features were quite effective, but think that they shouldn't be overused because I feel that it reduces their affect.
A good start made on this section Cerys. Develop this further with more examples from Nielsen's usability guide.
ReplyDeleteDo you intend to adhere to any of Nielsen's guidelines in the design of your own website? If so, which ones and if not then why not? Remember that Nielsen's guidelines are simply that - guidelines - which you use, bend or not use as you see fit - as long as you can justify your decisions.