I agree with Garoo. Having a different colour for visited links just is not usable for everything. Why would I want to mark a link “My Preferences” (for example) as a visited link? The link will be visited at different times for different reasons.
I can maybe understand marking an outgoing link, or a link to specific content, but even then it is not always required.
I would agree though that links should probably be underlined, and underlining should not be used for anything else, purely because this is immediately recognisable.
I guess I should read the book for details, but I tend to have problems with laundry lists of what not to do, and no advice for what you should do.
Not being a bad site is not the same as being a good site.
Plus, how do you measure things like “Violating web-wide conventions” and “Vaporous content and empty hype”.
I could list quite a few of my own ideas on what I consider web-wide conventions or empty hype.
Having a different colour for visited links
just is not usable for everything
You’re wrong. The typical case is a user who tries to find something on your site and clicks from page to page. Knowing when a link leads to a page he has already visited is extremely valuable.
Oddly enough, even though I read this article, every time I see the headline I think it says, “Timeablity is Useless” instead of “Usability is Timeless”. Weird brain.
Actually LKM I would agree with Mladen. For the majority of links, yes you should colourise visited links. However, for times such as his cited example of frequently visited links with a specific and obvious purpose, such as Preferences, it doesn’t necessarily need colourising. Though it doesn’t hurt too much to do it, and it’s probably more work to remove the colourising from just that link.
The problem with “The Horizontal Way” is that your content really does have to be in discrete blocks of self-contained text. Without that tracking your last position when you scroll is a complete nightmare. When I scroll down a page my eyes can keep track of my position, and even keep reading. When I scroll horizontally my position is completely disrupted because all the text is moving the opposite way to the direction in which I read.
"I want it to work like a book. Is that so hard?"
It’s not a book. Books don’t update themselves automatically when new, relevant information comes out. Making new technology comparable to old technology is moving backwards. Don’t get me wrong, I love books, but I can read a computer screen much faster (as fast as it scrolls when you click the down arrow).
"I don’t like scrolling text at all. It hurts my eyes to look at it. Computer screens have lousy resolution (compared to paper)."
Maybe you should adjust your text dpi. You can find it in windows under Display Properties-Settings-Advanced. I did this for my Mom(who has a similar problem), and now she can read the screen better. Or just get thicker glasses
Jakob Nielsen has some good points, but still it can be so draining for creativity and soul to read his stuff. Just looking at his homepage useit.com, which has looked like that for year still hurts my eyes. Jakob at least has proven that usability and design dont have to go hand in hand.
I agree with Ali, the web is not books.
About the “back button” breaking things, I think the back button has broken much more then the “not working back button”. When people go back and re-submit http post requests and result in dublicate submitted forms. Yes it is a matter of implemenatation, but still…
Seems to me that he basically rules out doing anything. For example, let’s say I use an unusual word that 50% of the readers won’t know, and I want to provide a definition of it.
Well, I can’t do a popup div, because that’s a custom widget, violates web conventions and it might look like a popup window or an ad (since there are a lot of ads in popup divs these days).
Can’t do a new browser window, that’s got three whole skulls!
Can’t put the definition inline because that leads to dense content, not to mention missing the point of hypertext. You could argue it should be defined the first time it’s used, but this is the web. How do I know if it’s the first time the user’s seen it when there are multiple paths to the same content?
I guess that leaves me with creating an entire new page for the definition and linking the user off to that. But isn’t taking the user out of the context of what he’s reading bad as well? Isn’t it even worse than a popup window?
Maybe I’ll start caring what Nielsen says it stops amounting to “Don’t do anything!”
Anyone have a link to any of the articles that discuss link colors?
The traditional colors used (before everyone started changing colors of everything with css) were shown to get better click ratios than non-standard colors.
Seems to me that he basically rules out doing anything. For example, let’s say I use an unusual word that 50% of the readers won’t know, and I want to provide a definition of it.
You could use the, say, abbr tag. At least in Firefox, it will add a dotted underline to the link and then on hover, pop up a tooltip with the expansion of the abbreviation. Semantically, it’s poor form, but if you’re that desperate to provide a definition…
My problem with Nielsen, although I agree with him on many points, is that his philosophy caters to the lowest I.Q. It’s a Harrison Bergeron situation, which the Government (through various lobby groups) actively endorses. To his credit, he’s just trying to make a living. It’s his dogmatic disciples I fear most.
While the Government is meant to serve the people, and therefore needs to include ALL people when considering its services, I believe it is up to the company or individual to decide how to serve its audience.
Design Creativity needs a sponsor. Art for Art’s sake is still a new concept (in the history of humanity), and Captialism continues to demonstrate that Art in its purest form is not for general consumption. Industrial design remains a critical pillar of Art’s influence in the world.
If we strip design from the web, we will never have Internet design periods equivalent to the Rennaisance, the Baroque, Gothic, Classical, etc. We will move directly into the shapeless, uncharacterized designs that plague our modern cities’ architecture (and alas, our very neighborhoods). Embellishment may not be required for functionality, but who among us doesn’t appreciate the fluted columns of Roman architecture, a detailed moulding around the door of one’s abode, or that line of rivets around the arm of an old leather recliner.
Aesthetic is as important as usability and can actually drive desire, no matter how unworkable it is. Witness: high-heeled shoes. You’d figure we could get shoes right after millenia of testing.
They can be required at times. In situations where there are several languages involved (multi-lingual countries or Europe) where languages issues can get people pretty finnicky, a splash page that says “Welcome” in the several languages involved is a good way to avoid bias perception, which can sometimes be detrimental.
Of course, the splash page should be quick to load, and the site be left unframed so one can bookmark the page in his favourite language right away.
It is also a good idea to put a link on each page to the other language, such as done on this website I am currently maintaining: http://www.st-armand.com
I just scanned through the government standards document and was impressed with the simple language. Easy enough for a computer programmer to follow. It even lays out the unspoken rules such as “reduce transitions between keyboard and light pen” and “provide fast feedback to user actions”. OK, I don’t use a light pen, but the mouse is the analog and many forms designers could use some lessons in that regard. And we don’t worry about the lag on a keypress any more, but I still encounter drop down menus and combo boxes that take 2 or 3 seconds to do their thing when you click on them.
Eam :
I was actually talking about the back button, but yes you could say it is the refresh button. But I was thinking of the scenario below:
User see a typical form, fills out all the fields and click submit.
The server then generates alot of things, like ordering a product and sends the result generated to the user.
The user go to something else but remember that he/she forgot something and click back and then the browser asks if the user want to send the post request again, and suddenly they have submitted the old form twice.
Back/forward is very usefull, but seems like an old navigation hack.
I swear I had no idea Vonnegut had died when I mentioned Harrison Bergeron. If you don’t know the reference, I encourage you to read the short story in Vonnegut’s honor today.
That’s it. People are used to certain behavior. If your behavior is different, you’d better have a very good reason. People feel stupid when they don’t understand how your site works, and making people feel stupid is a great way to lose customers, friends, etc.
Sure, people will learn the new behaviors if they spend enough time on your site. Unless your are Yahoo or Amazon, they probably will not spend enough time on your site to learn the new behaviors. The users will just come by every once in a while and feel stupid.
Make stupid people feel smart! That is the key to success.
This isn’t art, it’s design. Think crescent wrench not Michelangelo’s David
A simple, understandable interface is not “dumbed down.” It is easy to use. It is good design.
Also…
Nobody cares about some super-duper color scheme that can’t handle one more color (for visited links). People only notice horrible color schemes, so focus on function.
Users don’t come to your site for the experience, they come for the content. That is why browsers use vertical scrolling: our eyes scan up-and-down. (think grocery list vs. line of prose)
It is a little mis-leading to say that people don’t scroll, but it is a good design rule of thumb. People only scroll your page if they are already reading. Only the content and the footer should ever exist more than 1500px down.
