Why usability is a path to failure.

[Dcrux]

Why usability is a path to failure is a topic I've mentioned in previous posts. Unfortunately, this article is more linkbait than informative. (The comments are better than the article)

Usability is a hygenic factor. You can hurt a site by making it hard to use, but get no "bonus points" in the user's mind. It's obvious, really. Physical store users expect to find the products the store has to sell. Physical store users expect to be able to get into and navigate the store.

You gain no advantage for making it hard for users to shop. ....That is, unless all your competitors are truly horrible at usability. Which is why usability is so big on the web.

Usability barely gets you to zero in the user's mind for another reason -- usability is only half the equation. Usability folk are concerned with demotivators, or frictions in task completion. Users must be motivated for usability to work. That's why usability must be complemented with desirability design.

Even Jacob Nielsen explains usability is not enough. User Empowerment and the Fun Factor says as much, urging readers to move beyond ease of use. Which is why usability without desirability can be a path to failure.

[alienpest]

Usability seems to be the key to getting the search engines to index your site. All the standard website optimization rules seem to indicate that. Sure, you need something to offer the people when they get there, something to keep them there, but if the site isn't usable, the search engines will not find it to their liking, and no one will find it to begin with. What's the use of putting a fancy saddle on a dead horse?

[Dcrux]

The point is you get no advantage for selling horses whose only selling point is they aren't dead.

Only on the web would baseline primitive accessibility be confused with usability. Making your site code parsable by 'bots is not usability, it's bare minimum coding competence -- if that.

And until SE 'bots start buying things, putting in some thought about humans is a critical requirement. No store is going to advertise they didn't make doors fifteen feet off the ground, but somehow making a site show up in a browser is a feat of genius. Most of what passes for usability -- getting your site up to the minimal standard for a 'bot to parse it -- is so basic as to not be worth mentioning. It's not even human accessibility -- it's computer parse - ability.

But it has one thing which is apparently attractive to the code-obsessed ...there is not a hint of human nature to be found. Make no mistake, code parsability is not human usability. That's not even on the level we're talking about with this article.

[Orion]

great topic Dcrux

The way I always understood it...

accessibility is creating a page/site that is accessible to everyone (most focus is on visual and auditory impairments)

usability is creating a site that is easy to use (large focus on content layout, work flow and navigation)

usability and accessibility are functions of development they are technical aspects dealing with coding and layout of the site.

design is another piece (80% the won't really work without the other 20% tech stuff to back it up call it architecture if you like). design is a function of marketing, picking the right colors, font styles, where to place whitespace, content etc. etc.

Granted there are parts of the use / access - ability equation that are facilitated via marketing also but you always have to remember that no one will buy half a pie from the store..

Just my 2cents..

[Andilinks]

Usability is marketing. If understood properly. This is said as someone who navigates ecommerce sites for a living.

Some important percentage of those visitors who never make it to the checkout screen were victims of poor usability. I wouldn't try to learn usability from Neilsen unless I were an academic, as a retailer I'd learn from the volume players: Victoria's Secret, Netflix, Dell, 1-800-Flowers, Drugstore.com, Amazon, etc.

Copy them, they know usability that pays.

[bj]

Without a good product that people want, whether that product be something purchasable, or a more esoteric product such as content or a service, then it doesn't matter how usable, accessible, or attractive the site may be. I think that's where desirability comes into play, if I'm understanding you, Dcrux.

But if a grocery store with the best baker in the country put all its loaves of bread on the floor with no wrapping I doubt they'd be selling much bread, especially if they decided that electricity was too costly and turned out the lights.

There are a lot of bits and pieces that come into play to create a whole. Ignoring any one of those pieces may cost you.

[Dinghus]

I think the post lacks useablility. LOL Had to read it 2 or 3 times to really get what you were trying to say.

The situation that eluded you tho is that there are some sites that are horrible to use but have great sales because they have a product that people want very much. On the other hand, there are sites that are easy to use that have no sales because nobody wants what they are selling.

So the bottom line really is that you must have a product people want or useablility is a moot point. However focus on useability does not necessarily lead to the failure of the site.

[alienpest]

I was not talking about coding, I was talking about how people can get around your site to find what they need. If you design the site for the human user, the the search engines seem to treat it better. That is never an end to itself. If they cant find it on your site, they won't buy it, but finding it is only the start. You do need the whole pie.

[ArticleMaster]

Originally Posted by bj

There are a lot of bits and pieces that come into play to create a whole. Ignoring any one of those pieces may cost you.

I'm in total agreement with you BJ. As a web designer and developer (and a one-woman shop!) I have to start with ALL pieces in mind so that the whole thing works.

Usability is just one part, and a web site is not likely to fail based on just one part of the pie. And although I got shot down for it in a previous post here, I believe it all begins with the target market and what their skill level and motivation to buy are.

[chrisJumbo]

Are we just talking Usability for the un-handicapped or Usability for all?

I will admit that for the most part the former has been our focus. Although I have tried to give meaningful names to images and properly use H1,H2,H3 for structure.

I recently discovered that the simple act of leaving a link underlined makes a huge difference. People didn't realize that our bolded and different colored text were links and never moved their mouse over them to see the underline appear. For design, I didn't like how the underlines interrupted the "flow", but then using Google's Analytics and the overlay, I noticed no one clicked the links.

So in our case I had to put aside my design preferances so people would know they could click around.

For most sites you need to have good structure, easy navigation, and a good product/service/information to be successful.

[nipplecharms1]

Am I the only one so far, or maybe it has been said and I did not understand, that you have to get the people in the door first.

Build it and they will not necessarily come. A Field of Dreams was just that, a dream. If you cannot get your site to rank and no one knows it’s there, who cares if the tree really makes a sound when it falls. Ok, I am mixing some metaphors here.

My point is first that you have to get them in the door, have something they want once they are in, and then a way to quickly add the item to their cart and make the purchase. I worked for a company that often had 3-4 landing pages before you ever got to see a price of an item to buy. That is why now they are a 1MM company down from a 4MM company. That and their infrastructure is broken.

If you make it easy for the customer to add an item to the cart, in the fewest amount of clicks possible, you will have a better chance of making the sale. Is that usability or accessibility or just old-fashioned Marketing 101?

Why again is the milk at the furthest point from the front door in a supermarket? Hummmm?

My plug nickel and a grape soda.

Michael

[Dcrux]

Why again is the milk at the furthest point from the front door in a supermarket? Hummmm?

Why indeed. There are a lot of good points made. Let's take a practical example and separate basic common sense (not putting unwrapped bread on the floor) and more advanced design topics.

The point of the article is usability is one of several elements. Take milk or canned soup. Now I have read that when you stack the canned soup in alphabetical order, you sell X amount. Stack the cans out-of-order and you get a 30% increase in sales.

Put the milk -- or the quick stop items in the back of the store -- and sales go up. This is called merchandising, and many of the principles of desirability are counter to what you would normally call usability. For more about this, read Paco Underhill's "Why We Buy."

We all know that grocery stores put the milk and bread in the back of the store to make us shop the entire store before getting to the stuff we really want and need.
-- Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping - Paco Underhill

Physical stores practice visual merchandising. The tool they use is called a planogram. Online stores could use such diagrams -- but don't.

Check out any well-known chain, such as 7-Eleven or Target, and you'll quickly realize the product-positioning pattern repeats itself in every store. If you were to place a price on such a planogram, it would be worth millions. The planogram is the most potent tool available to retailers who wish to increase their conversion rates.

But, hey, hang on! If brick-and-mortar retailing values planograms so much, then think about the Web. How might the online planogram look?

-- Webogram Power, Part 1

Turns out when you analyze site sales, patterns emerge. And you'll find product selection on a page also determines how much sales of each product you get.

Like most retailers, PETCO assumed that the best way to showcase the products on a category page was to use a shotgun approach: lots of thumbnails on the page to show the breadth of products. Wrong again.

That time, we learned that picking one or two products and showing a larger, more attractive photo converted visitors to buyers at a faster rate than the thumbnails.
-- Why Your Site Doesn't Need to be Pretty

Looks, matter but not the way graphic artists want it to. ...And not the way usability people expect. Yes, of course people have to find the site and the products -- nobody is saying you shouldn't do the fundamentals. However, being in business is about competitive advantages, not bare minimums.

A planogram is a blueprint given to store operators of what items go where in a store. The purpose is to help improve overall sales and make optimal use of consumer traffic patterns. By creating business rules that optimize margins and inventory turns on key pages of a Web site, like home pages, popular paid search landing pages, and checkout pages (this, in effect, is what a Webogram would do), online retailers could be capturing incremental gains that will help sustain the eCommerce industry's double-digit annual growth for years to come.

-- Forrester Reseach Retail FistLook

Again, selling horses that aren't dead isn't the path to success. They're supposed to be alive, that's not a point of argument. But it's also not getting anyone to do business with you. So don't start slapping yourself on the back just because you put in TITLE and ALT tags and your page is SERP friendly. I'm not disrespecting SE positioning, I'm also not making SEO the be-all and end-all many have.

What I am talking about are ecommerce patterns that are a level beyond simple usability. I'm talking about a simple CSS change that produces a 389% increase in response. Not a word of text changed, mind you -- pure design.

My criticism of the article which starts this thread is these guys tear into usability, but fail to propose the "path to success" which follows usability as a path to failure. Desirability design is that path to success.

[Andilinks]

As I mentioned earlier, I surf ecommerce sites for a living, I visit a dozen or more new sites every day and have been doing this for years. The first thing I do on every site (after "View Source") is check out customer service and "contact us." Retail usability is the sea that I swim in.

If I were designing sites I would buy the list of the "Top 500 retail sites" (Google that) and I would study them until I knew cold what made them tick. Then I'd approach clients with the knowledge that the winners use.

Usability for paying customers is the only usability that will put food on your table. After dinner you can afford to think about usability for everyone else.

[bj]

Put the milk -- or the quick stop items in the back of the store -- and sales go up. This is called merchandising, and many of the principles of desirability are counter to what you would normally call usability.

Gee, that's exactly the reason why, when I only have milk and maybe one or two other items to buy I don't go in a supermarket, but instead walk around the corner to the local bodega, where it's three steps from the front door, then four steps to the counter to pay for it. And that holds true even if I'm driving right by the supermarket. So it would seem to me that they overthought that a bit, and lost a fair amount of revenue from me because of their "marketing" choices.

[Dcrux]

When your bodega makes as much per square foot as Walmart, I'll be the first one at the seminar they hold. I'm all for studying what converts, that's the point.

Apple Stores Now More Profitable Than Tiffany's Per Square Foot

Huh ...no mention of how smart your bodega is on the chart. Must be a conspiracy against usability.

The planogram is what makes the big guys tick. If you want your findings to be listened to, you'll want to describe them in planogram form.

[carlos_p]

So much concepts flying around in this thread...

Being an old-school-hardcore-designer and design teacher for almost two decades now, I just can't sit still while reading this.
Here's my 10(!) cents (keep them: with the interests it may amount to a lot in the future):

1—Usability is a buzzword some computer engineers with no design education or background found out some time ago. When they found out the miserable experience they were providing their users with, lo and behold! They came up with "USABILITY".
This, in reality, stems from a small part of a Design discipline called "ERGONOMICS"; a discipline REAL DESIGNERS have been studying for ages.

2—By "REAL DESIGNERS" I mean people who have some formal education in the field and who work full time providing REAL solutions to their client's problems. I'm not talking about would-be designers, nor smart skater-boys tottin' fresh copies of Flash+Photoshop, nor frustrated artists who have to sell design services for a living 'cause they're still waiting for their debut exhibition on the shoddy art-gallery at the mall, nor cubicle-bred sweatshop proletarians on a moonlighting escapade... (the list goes on and on...)

3—USABILITY stems from a very specific kind of what is called "COGNITIVE ERGONOMICS". This is a discipline which deals with the cognitive processes involved in communication. The corner-stone to this discipline is what is known as the "THEORY OF COGNITIVE LOAD". You have to start there if you want to take this matter seriously.

4—Admittedly, usability is more than that, as it gained much from another discipline called HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION, which was already around when Nielsen pulled that rabbit out of his hat.

5—I myself find Nielsen's partner, Don Norman, much more interesting. His work is required reading for anyone interested in any discipline of design (check below). My perception is that Nielsen has always been too radical, maybe trying to get too much attention. Still, I think anyone interested in these matters should read his work too.

6—Usability hinges on TASK ANALYSIS. How many sites have been designed taking the users' tasks as the starting point to the project? DISREGARDING TASK ANALYSIS IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

7—But wait! Do you call it "WEB DESIGN" or do you called it "USABILITY DESIGN"? Or do you call it "PAINT BY NUMBERS"? A web design project is a DESIGN project. A lot of people think the "Designer" is just that guy/gall you call on to provide a "pretty picture" (or whatever). The designer has to be the person who lays out the blueprint for the project, she has to see the "big picture". A designer is someone who must be fit to work with a multidisciplinary team, someone who has to conceive a solution to a problem.
Usability or ergonomics or any other discipline involved in the design process is just a part of the solution. Stating that "USABILITY IS A PATH TO FAILURE" is a misleading statement. What I find to be really true is that ANY SHORT-SIGHTED APPROACH TO A DESIGN PROBLEM IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

8—Furthermore, usability is being sold short here: usability must be regarded as the SATISFACTION LEVEL the WHOLE EXPERIENCE provides to the USER. In the light of this more "holistic" concept, a site which provides a good INTERFACE but in which the internal processing performs poorly is in fact a site with poor usability. For instance: what USE is it to you if you go to an online store, find the item you want, enter that bus-load of shipping and payment information and then the final checkout page churns out an error?

9—Physical stores and their design, their layout, etc., can't be compared (in the same terms) to web design. Sure, the most needed items are at the back and the kids cravings are positioned at kid-line-of-sigh-height, etc. But how much time does it take you to get to the back of the store? And how much time does it get you to get back in your car and drive to another physical store?
On the web there are trillions of competing stores only 1-second away from one another. That's where usability (in the sense you people are thinking about) comes into play.
Some important concepts have already been mentioned. You can't drown your visitors in chocolates and bubble gum when they are looking for milk. You can't force-feed them pages full of stuff they don't want: they will simply leave to another site in a click.
(And btw, clicking through hundreds of sites a day for a living is an experience which isn't in any way comparable to the experience of a real user)

10—Yes, Amazon is the king when it comes to online store design. But make no mistake: it is extremely difficult and expensive to do what these guys do. And they do it by the book.
And what the "book" tells us? It tells us much more than what has been written on this thread so far... but one extremely important factor to successful usability is USABILITY TESTING. It is simply impossible to come up with something like Amazon without it.

PS: To whom it may concern, Google the words in caps and also check these out:
—Jef Raskin, "The Humane Interface, New directions for designing interactive systems";
—Preece, Rogers and Sharp, "Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction";
—Kevin Mullet and Darrell Sano, "Designing Visual Interfaces: Communication oriented techniques";
—Donald A. Norman, "Things That Make Us Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the Age of the Machine";
—Donald A. Norman, "The Design of Everyday Things";
—Donald A. Norman, "Emotional Design: Why we love (or hate) everyday things";

Cheers,

[carlos_p]

Originally Posted by bj

<snip...>And that holds true even if I'm driving right by the supermarket. So it would seem to me that they overthought that a bit, and lost a fair amount of revenue from me because of their "marketing" choices.

That's because their marketing doesn't factor you in the equation as an individual: your shopping habits leave you out of the statistic. And probably the extra products that those who do go to the back of the store buy more than compensate for people like you and me who'd rather go to the local shops.
But your remark is extremely important because it illustrates that unique aspect of the web medium: it is not only possible but extremely wise to cater for the needs of the individual. This is yet again demonstrated brilliantly by Amazon, as it tracks all your visits and preferences even if you are not logged in and tailors the content to your updated profile.

[nipplecharms1]

Originally Posted by carlos_p

This is yet again demonstrated brilliantly by Amazon, as it tracks all your visits and preferences even if you are not logged in and tailors the content to your updated profile.

And who has the time or resources to emulate Amazizzle? Not I said the rabbit!

I kept up with thread for a while but now its beyond me. I just want to sell sexy jewelry.

I think my point about the milk was expounded upon here. Why do they put all that crap on the counter at 7-11 when you check out? IMPLUSE. It is all about convenience on the web. I do not have to walk the store to get to the boob jewelry. I only need to search and ye shall find. Every item on the web is now right at the counter.

So does that mean my particular site listed below is Accessible and Usable? I guess not as sales are not thru the roof. Can it be better? So can Amazizzle. But they have the resources internally to create what they call the "Amazon Experience" (I worked for a company that sold on that platform and do they ever mean "The Experience.") Deviate and you are dead. I on the other hand have WPW! And that is great for me!

I am not sure what you mean Dcrux when you say

Originally Posted by dcrux

What I am talking about are ecommerce patterns that are a level beyond simple usability. I'm talking about a simple CSS change that produces a 389% increase in response. Not a word of text changed, mind you -- pure design.

Can you define this so that even an idiot like me can apply it to his site?

So I am not sure if I agree with Dcrux now or not. That is scary. Or its just late and when I read this in the light of day I will say, "Michael WTF were you thinking!"

That and a box of Ritz!

Michael

[Webnauts]

What is usability? - Usability Basics | Usability.gov

[bj]

When your bodega makes as much per square foot as Walmart, I'll be the first one at the seminar they hold. I'm all for studying what converts, that's the point.

If you're all for studying what converts, then you wouldn't have made this statement. There are different purposes, different niches, and different strategies depending on the goals of the website. Not everyone aspires to be Walmart (thank GOD!) And yes, as carlos_p said, paying attention to the science of ergonomics, and as Andilinks said, seeing what works within the type of similar site to what you're aiming for (or, like Amazon did, blazing the path and inventing the new tools that work) are part of that.

Dcrux, you said, "What I am talking about are ecommerce patterns that are a level beyond simple usability. I'm talking about a simple CSS change that produces a 389% increase in response. Not a word of text changed, mind you -- pure design." If indeed you are the holder of that secret, why don't you let us be the judges of how effective it can and will be on sites other than the one you used it on? Let's hear it.

Side note-- carlos_p, if you've never read "Cheaper by the Dozen" as a school age kid, you might get a kick out of it. We who grew up in nearby towns had it as required reading in school early on. It's a very entertaining book about how the science of Ergonomics was invented.

[carlos_p]

Originally Posted by bj

<snip>
Side note-- carlos_p, if you've never read "Cheaper by the Dozen" as a school age kid, you might get a kick out of it. We who grew up in nearby towns had it as required reading in school early on. It's a very entertaining book about how the science of Ergonomics was invented.

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into that. I'm portuguese, naturally our curricula don't match...

Cheers,

[jrb@w3f.com]

Originally Posted by chrisJumbo

Are we just talking Usability for the un-handicapped or Usability for all?

I will admit that for the most part the former has been our focus. Although I have tried to give meaningful names to images and properly use H1,H2,H3 for structure.

I recently discovered that the simple act of leaving a link underlined makes a huge difference. People didn't realize that our bolded and different colored text were links and never moved their mouse over them to see the underline appear. For design, I didn't like how the underlines interrupted the "flow", but then using Google's Analytics and the overlay, I noticed no one clicked the links.

So in our case I had to put aside my design preferances so people would know they could click around.

For most sites you need to have good structure, easy navigation, and a good product/service/information to be successful.

People that build great looking web sites usually have an artistic talent. Within this talent is the desire to push their artistic talent beyond usability for something that they can be proud of artistically. Unfortunately this can overshoot the usability for the customer. I found a lot of Mac Babies doing this early on the internet. The ones that were willing to back it off a bit provided better conversion rates for their customers. Chris's point is right in-line with this aspect as I remember a discussion with a hired designer who said that the nonunderlined links made the page look better. The nodecoration styles were removed, and visitors stayed to buy. The site owner was impressed. Our Mac baby was proud, and we complemented her, but she understood usability is not necessarily an artistic feature.

There must be a balance. Excellent point Chris.

[glinted]

I have been big on usability but I read something interesting from a successful Internet millionaire who purposely makes his sites the type people don't want to stick around which means they click something to get the heck out of there quickly hehehe - of course if your selling things then usability should be of prime importance right up to the checkout. Same goes for sites that want returning visitors which I guess is most of us.

[Dcrux]

Not everyone aspires to be Walmart (thank GOD!)

True enough. Let's go from the physical stores to online. But some convenience stores, for example gas station variety, do place the milk within steps of the entrance. Different niches, different layout ...still exponentially better per square foot sales. While it is true some Mom & Pop joint is going to be around the corner in ten years, unless you can show some metric about sales, it's not likely to be the same ownership. If the bodegas hang around in general, but individuals go out of business (usability and all), my point still holds. You are welcome to assert any alternative to sales per square foot, I just used a standard.

This would go a long way towards my understanding how my point citing sales per square foot of Walmart stores was not about conversions, and somehow your X steps from the milk to the counter of some unknown bodega (with an unknown track record) was about conversions. Perhaps this is a case history Walmart should study.

It's hard to tell from the article, but usability may have become over specialized and not holistic. Take a look at some of the articles in this section. It's hard to find anything concerning humans, from task analysis to human testing. That's usability as practiced. (And please, please don't say we know everything about users and human nature, so the natural result is to only ask questions about what the poster doesn't know about -- code.)

It really doesn't matter what "real" usability is. The impression people have of what usability is is being posted in this section. How many posts about task analysis? How many about doing any kind of test with users? Go back a year or more and see what usability is as practiced.

Donald Norman is of interest here, but the Nielsen post I linked on "Joy of Use" and the "Fun Factor" comes close. Perhaps the better article would be how usability as practiced has become narrowed.

Stating that "USABILITY IS A PATH TO FAILURE" is a misleading statement. What I find to be really true is that ANY SHORT-SIGHTED APPROACH TO A DESIGN PROBLEM IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

I stated the article seemed as much, so I agree. Perhaps a good follow on discussion topic is whether design and / or usability as practiced in general has become short-sighted.

Really usability is about what we can know about users, usually supported by testing. How many designers will put their designs through A/B split run testing? How many would dismiss the attempts to bring planogramming to the web out-of-hand?

Did designers get forced into the "pretty picture" box by others? Or did design as it is generally practiced put the designer there? How do we test this. Here's an idea, why don't we run a famous design contest an see who shows up.

There was little content and even less user science.
Many sites submitted had no concern for the user on the most basic levels. Rarely could you identify an idea or purpose behind the site, or name a possible user goal the site was intended to facilitate. There was no flow, no legibility, no usability. It wasn’t so much that the designers had contempt for their users as that they seemed never to have been taught to think about users at all. One gets the feeling that the web design curriculum at too many colleges and universities consists of little more than tips on how to use Flash to imitate sites that won awards five years ago.

-- The rebooter’s children go rebootless

It would be presumptuous to guess, as Zeldman does, about what's being taught. But it does show what is being submitted, what's getting put into practice and winning awards and what's not even on the radar screen. I doubt Nielsen's name would even be known -- no matter what incendiary comments he made -- if he didn't fill a niche in design. The frustrated artists and skater-boys seem to be taking the spotlight from the formally trained. Either that, or almost none enter these contests.

I seem to forget. Where's the usability section on CSS Zen Garden? The article does seem to unfairly pick on usability when there are so many candidates, but then it's a usability section. All this comes down to testing. What are you going to put to the test and place before users?

[Dcrux]

Usability hinges on TASK ANALYSIS. How many sites have been designed taking the users' tasks as the starting point to the project? DISREGARDING TASK ANALYSIS IS A PATH TO FAILURE.

This is a nice point, in and of itself. However, it does (seem) to contradict another point about design holism. Is there a problem with the link between tasks and objectives? Does task analysis have a tendency to make you myopic about objectives and holism?

The main goal of almost all users of group calendaring software is to avoid needless, unproductive meetings, yet the number–one task performed by almost all of that software is to create meetings. This contradiction, where the user’s goals and the program’s tasks are in direct opposition is symptomatic of the failure of our current design methods to work effectively. What’s more, this contradiction is found almost universally in our software, regardless of its type.
—Goal–Directed Design by Alan Cooper

This could be just as well said about online RIAs or desktop apps. The observed behavior in users is the task is so exclusively supported by the app, users schedule "meetings" alone so they can get work done. Good task analysis, great usability ....not so good on desirability or the link to the larger objective the task is supposed to support. (Maybe that's not usability as it is supposed to be -- but is it usability as practiced) It can also be extended to the shopping experience and ecommerce.

Let's say I know you're going to buy curtains. However, I test the idea of selling a whole window treatment.

Like most things on or offline, there are a couple of good ways to do this and a great many bad ways. When are we most especially task focussed? When we have done all the research, or at the end of what Jared Spool calls the shopping cycle.

Not everybody is ready to buy. Yet most web sites are designed around people who know what they want and are ready to buy. We know this isn't everybody, it probably isn't most people -- but that's the traffic everyone is competing for.

Some sites, like Bed Bath & Beyond, have sections which throw a roadblock in the way of task-focussed shoppers. They attempt to provide information on all the other stuff that goes with a curtain or blind -- the window treatment.

Why does Bed, Bath & Beyond do that?

Imagine your web audience is made up of segments. Task analysis tells you to build, in essence, an online vending machine. This is a site that's not set up for shopping -- it's set up for buying.

Objectives analysis might suggest a section on window treatments designed for shopping. This is when the shopper is not yet a buyer, but site design can move them along the shopping cycle. More importantly, at this early stage the user is open to buying a whole window treatment rather than just curtains or blinds.

People want to believe that everything and anything not in the user's direct line of action is a "distraction." This eliminates the idea users shop. In much of the task-directed design camp, all this is distracting decoration.

I'm going to the uncharacteristic length of posting a link in support of my point.

Product Research, Hypertext Cycles, and Decision Making

Users are not single-minded automatons. They have different contexts or mindsets at different stages of the buying cycle. Supporting only the buying behavior at the end practically forces users off the site for "context building." They might return to your site, but probably won't. The exception could be if you're the big box brand name in the category, and that's almost nobody.

If you take the premise of the article, confusing the task with the objective is the path to failure. Holism would be to support both shopping and buying, while not confusing the user. Tricky, but doable. Of course, doing the tricky stuff right is what keeps you in business. No you can't put milk at the back of an online store, but you can adapt the general idea of merchandising to the web as Bed, Bath & Beyond does.

[rcourtney]

The title of this post is misleading and utter nonsense. As a designer, programmer and SEO, I look at all aspects of a site, as it should be. As many here have commented, there are multiple pieces of the puzzle that must come together to make a site successful.

However, if the premise is that to concentrate solely or overly on one piece of the puzzle leads to failure, then this article might just as well have been titled "Why graphic design is a path to failure" or "Why SEO is a path to failure" or "Why great web applications are a path to failure" since having only one piece in place to the exclusion of all others would of course be a problem - duh.

[Dcrux]

...since having only one piece in place to the exclusion of all others would of course be a problem - duh.

You are right. But how many sites are lopsided in just the way you describe? Actually, yes, most of these elements should just be part of of design, including usability. ...they aren't.

Rather sites do get SEO or whatever dominant. You do get pages that read like search engine spam. You do get Flash sites, and lots of them, which sacrifice both SEO and usability on the altar of creativity. You do get a whopping lot of designers only out to design for other designers. Usability types often disdain graphics, which is absurd, unless you see the widespread use of stock photography cliches as almost the default setting for design.

I've rarely seen a good diagram or picture relating to the actual business, not to mention an infographic. Sure, it isn't supposed to happen ...it just does with disturbing regularity.

So yes, when you create a site skewed toward one piece, its a problem. But I would suggest it is far from obvious, especially to those perpetuating the practice. And one big reason why is people don't run user tests, they test code. (Sorry asking for a casual comment in the review forum isn't user testing). Nothing wrong with that, until it becomes the "one piece."

[carlos_p]

Originally Posted by Dcrux

This is a nice point, in and of itself. However, it does (seem) to contradict another point about design holism. Is there a problem with the link between tasks and objectives? Does task analysis have a tendency to make you myopic about objectives and holism?
<snip>

What I mean by TASK ANALYSIS is a process in which the analysts analyze the human activities which the interactive product being developed is supposed to support. This must not be confused with the tasks a user performs in that interactive product when the product is completed and in current use.
It is then your job to take the information gathered by this (and other) analysis and try to perceive what are the people's goals.
This should be nothing new to any Designer coming from a graphic design background. Too often people come to us with a vague notion about what they WANT, but they will be your clients and your friends for ever if you get them what they really NEED (but you have to make sure they understand that).

Originally Posted by Dcrux

Task analysis tells you to build, in essence, an online vending machine.

Task analysis doesn't TELL YOU TO DO anything: this is an analytic process, it provides data. You should use that data to help you get an insight on the subject. Again, this is merely a part of the whole process.

Originally Posted by Dcrux

<snip>
Did designers get forced into the "pretty picture" box by others? Or did design as it is generally practiced put the designer there?

In my view, there are 3 main reasons why designers got forced into the "pretty picture":
1—People in general have a tendency to look at any intellectual activity as something simple that anyone is capable of. If an engineer makes a mistake in a bridge's design, the bridge might collapse; however, if someone designs an awful web page nobody gets killed (well, usually... the client might get angry enough);
2—It only takes a computer and an internet connection to design a web page. Anyone with access to these can "be" a web designer. Not anyone can be a bridge engineer.
3—You don't need a permit to exercise any communication design activity.

As a consequence of the above, there's a lot of work done out there (some good, most bad) that gets tagged as "design", being done by a real designer or not.
Another consequence is that many business owners commission design jobs to people who aren't qualified to do those jobs, "heck! that's only a pretty picture, my 15 year old nephew's got Photoshop, I'll give him $100 and he'll do it."

Originally Posted by Dcrux

<snip>
How do we test this. Here's an idea, why don't we run a famous design contest an see who shows up.
<snip>

I don't agree with your interpretation of that blog post by Zeldman. Read what he says after those two observations you quoted:

To be fair, many who participated in this year’s Reboot are young and are still finding their voices and styles. Today they imitate; tomorrow they may innovate. Hopefully, too, those who currently know nothing about user science will soon work with writers, information architects, and senior art directors who guide them to realize that design is not something you do in a vacuum nor is it something that is just about itself.

...and my perception is that most people who enter these contests are kids and the like, people with no clients who want to get into the limelight. If you want to use a contest as a gauge, I suggest you try Communication Arts'.
Check out any of those smarty-kids' blogs and high-techy looking sites and they've got a ton of badges from lame contests and other high-techy sites, web page catalogs and aggregators, etc.

I get lots of candidates' email, one even mentions "participations in pixeltees.com and cafepress.com" (!) - that's a hint on how crazy things can get...

[kgun]

Originally Posted by carlos_p

So much concepts flying around in this thread...

I liked the concept of planogram. Study the articles in the two links and come back and tell if it was usable information.

Originally Posted by Dcrux

What I am talking about are ecommerce patterns that are a level beyond simple usability. I'm talking about a simple CSS change that produces a 389% increase in response. Not a word of text changed, mind you -- pure design.

If that is based on a true story, it should be part of an usable planogram analysis.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Dcrux

Here's an idea, why don't we run a famous design contest an see who shows up.

Would you participate if I invited you?

[carlos_p]

Originally Posted by kgun

I liked the concept of planogram. Study the articles in the two links and come back and tell if it was usable information.

mmm... nope. That's another rabbit out of the hat. Some people seem to be all hyped about what might be called a "webogram", like that guy says in those linked articles... I'm sorry but that's another tool anyone who is a professional already knows and uses for ages. That's called INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. And, yet again, that's another part of the whole process.

Seems to me that a thorough read of this thread will show anyone interested in these matters that there's a whole lot of stuff (stuff most people seem to ignore) you have to be adept at in order to develop a good, value-generating web site (Notice that my concept of "value" here goes deeper than may look at first. "Value" is mostly regarded as "cash" but may be something else).

Google INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE and also check these out:
—Eric L. Reiss, "Practical Information Architecture: a hands-on approach to structuring successful websites";
—Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler, "Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works";

[Martinscholes]

Some websites are designed to look pretty, some are designed to do a job.

I know which I, as a user, prefer!

[Dcrux]

Lots of good responses.

there's a whole lot of stuff (stuff most people seem to ignore) you have to be adept at in order to develop a good, value-generating web site

That's really should be the point of design. If it takes an somewhat incendiary article to get more conversation going, however short and uninformative, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Would you participate if I invited you?

Other than novelty or my own amusement, what would be the purpose? Interesting idea, but I'm not sure a contest few enter and nobody pays attention to is really going to change a single thing. Seems to me there would already be a contest to enter, if there were a point to it.

It might be interesting to figure out how such a contest would work. By "work" I mean work out differently from all the others.

The example was not about the contest format, it's to show what's getting into design. (And what earns points with other designers, and what doesn't). Sure, each one of the entrants *could* hook up with IAs, or a the very least writers, in the future. Why didn't they consider it an element in improving the odds of winning this design content? There really is nothing but Zeldman's hope indicating that they'll change in future. They may, grudgingly, be made to work with others by forces outside their control ...but my prediction is it won't be pretty. Perhaps, for a variety of reasons, contests aren't the right format. For example, I seem to recall Ogilvy said something about the number of months after winning a Clio (for creative) the ad agency lost the client whose work won them the Clio (for not producing sales).

Contests may be setting up the same dynamic for web design. I mean, really, if the sites don't even seem to have a purpose, that's not going to be solve by hookups (hookups with alien mind sets) in the future, that's fundamental. Related is A List Apart Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia (or Build a Website for No Reason) No purpose equates to no clear idea of a user, which likely means no objectives, tasks, and so on. That article is not about a contest, it's about the client meeting. That's what strikes me as the more believable future for the people entering the contest.

This is interesting, given some companies do hold contests to select designers. Ever hear of a client selecting on usability? Or whatever, if anything, goes beyond usability?

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Dcrux

Here's an idea, why don't we run a famous design contest an see who shows up.

Originally Posted by kgun

Would you participate if I invited you?

I am an economist with a strong mathematical background. I have a tendency to take people literally, may be too often.

I thought you was a designer ...

[Seminole386]

Many programmers get way to tied up with design and build worthless sites. I am defining worthless as a site that does not produce the intended propose. My son and son-in-law design great looking websites. I use Front Page and do a basic site. I sell real estate and earn several times six figures a year, they need other jobs to allow them to do fancy programming. They make fun of my sites but I am successful...isn't that the goal? The (KISS) keep it simple stupid approach to webdesign is the only way to be successful. If someone visits a site and can't navigate it because you have drop down menu bars or hidden links chances are the guest, unless they are a computer guru, is gone to a site with easier navigation.

Sales is nothing more than presenting what the person is looking for at the best price over the internet. If your site is sloppy they may buy from the second cheapest site but nobody is going to pay extra because you have java. There are incentive sales in stores where display matters but that is not the case on the Internet. I am guessing 99% of internet buyers buy what they were shopping for, not impluse sales.

[kgun]

Originally Posted by Seminole386

Many programmers get way to tied up with design and build worthless sites. I am defining worthless as a site that does not produce the intended propose.

Agree. Exellent design is perhaps art. It may provoke or please, as long as people do what you want them to do on your site it is good enough and sometimes good enough is best.

Originally Posted by Seminole386

I use Front Page and do a basic site. I sell real estate and earn several times six figures a year, they need other jobs to allow them to do fancy programming. They make fun of my sites but I am successful...isn't that the goal? The (KISS) keep it simple stupid approach to webdesign is the only way to be successful. If someone visits a site and can't navigate it because you have drop down menu bars or hidden links chances are the guest, unless they are a computer guru, is gone to a site with easier navigation.

Personally, I do not know Front Page. I like developement platforms like you find if you click the link in my contest site. Adobe dreamweaver is a level below, but it is much more than an HTML editor. I is an integrated developement ide that is very good for non designers like me. I am sure some very great designs are made by usning notepad and cut and paste templates, animations, scripts etc. from the web. There is no lack of information on the internet (the time you take to read this post, there are put more fresh content on the web than you will reach to look through and read, even if you used the rest of your life, you are young and become 120 years old) the problem is to find the correct one. Here are two tools to select colours and designs:

• Colour Contrast Check - snook.ca
• [ws] Color Scheme Generator 2

Good design is also science. Note that great mathematicians and artists have been working with design. Do you need to know how to select a colour palette using HEX? Wich colour wheel suits you best?

KISS is a good principle. Einstein said, make it simple, as simple as possible, but no simpler. If you can avoid hacks, don't use them, if you can avoid using JS and iFrames, don't use them. If you can use the XML family of technologies (XSLT vs CSS) use them? Will XSLT finally make CSS a subset and as such outdated or will XSLT + other XML design and styling technologies complement CSS?

Even if the price I indicate on that WPW post I directed you to is not much, I invite you to participate. Now I am reading the SP book I cite there, so I will have a minimal background in design / colour theory to judge your proposal. Can fractals (KW search "beautiful fractals", "fractals design etc." be used in design? Look at another link in that WPW post. You should be able to find it.

[carlos_p]

Originally Posted by Seminole386

Many programmers get way to tied up with design and build worthless sites.
<snip>
I use Front Page and do a basic site. I sell real estate and earn several times six figures a year, they need other jobs to allow them to do fancy programming. They make fun of my sites but I am successful...isn't that the goal?
<snip>
Sales is nothing more than presenting what the person is looking for at the best price over the internet.
<snip>

First, you'd need to discern between "programmers" and "designers". These are two different roles that may or may not be played by the same person. The designer is like the architect, whereas the programmer is like the engineer.

Second, you're comparing apples to watermelons! Your job is selling real estate, while (apparently) your sons' is developing sites: how can you compare those incomes?
You're successful? That's great, but that's beside the point. The point is: would you be able to get another figure beside those six/year if your sites were developed by a pro team instead?

Third, it looks like you are reducing everything to a price tag. Ok... marketing, merchandising, advertising, consumer surveys, all that is useless: KISS all that and just lower the prices, right?
Wrong! The key to this is in our own sentence: "what the person is looking for" --- that's what's really tricky about all this.

And as for simplicity, well...

In anything at all, perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.
-- Antoine de Saint Exupery

... that's actually the ultimate challenge in any design job.

[Peter (IMC)]

Am I the only one so far, or maybe it has been said and I did not understand, that you have to get the people in the door first.

What door? A website has as many doors as pages. That´s why putting the milk all the way at the end of the store is useless online.

Usability is a requirement, not a goal as far as I am concerned. More usability doesn't increase conversions. Lack of it on the other hand, does decrease conversions.

Sales is nothing more than presenting what the person is looking for at the best price over the internet.

The best price? I guess you mean the lowest price. Price is the least important factor in most cases. A higher price can even increase sales. Price has to match perceived value. If it seems cheaper than it should be, people won't trust it. If it seems more expensive than it should be, people will search further.

[Tubby]

To me, usability is an enigma.
People are the most peculiar thing ever to exist on this planet. they are extremely hard to fathom. This is why quite often usability is boiled down, and the chosen solution is to get as many people to visit as possible.

If twice as many visitors call in, and only one in a hundred buys. getting a hundred extra visitors finds you one more buyer. But I am not sure I would class it as more usable.

Here lies I think one of the main problems, If an SEO can triple your visitors, and triple your sales, why bother about the customer. . just start an affiliate program. How many of you have sent 20,000 users to a worthless affiliate program. (simply because the site relies on thousands of visitors daily and has about .05% usability )

Usability Is a topic that needs discussing. I would like to see a few posts with examples.
I see the same blurbs everywhere. Show me some comparative examples!

Having opened my mouth. this http://restocar.com/cgi-bin/usfm/form.cgi?form=8
is about 60 times more usable than this
http://classifieds.restocar.com/cgi-...cgi?action=new

Both forms are on the same website. if an equal amount of visitors click on an identical link - then the result is around 70 times better on the first example. (It is more usable- but. . . Not as neat....)

I currently run around 60 different submit forms. working out what makes them tick is extremely difficult. yet designers keep grinding them out, If the store the submitted data, then they pass the usability test.

[kgun]

Here is a related WPW thread:

Web 2.0 Design.

[mothproof]

"Or put another way, there’s only so far you can get by streamlining the shopping cart on your website."


details matter too. sometimes i want a pretty shopping cart versus a wobbly one.

but you have a point. ")

[Dcrux]

This thread is still going on? Okay, let's try to address this milk thing which seems to be a stumbling block.

What door? A website has as many doors as pages. That´s why putting the milk all the way at the end of the store is useless online.

You're going to have to take two steps back from this example and apply it to web design. Many, many stores online do this, but you're right. There is not "back of the store." Online a surfer may enter a site from any page. So where's the "back"?!

Amazon and many, many online retailers make good use of the bottom of the page. What's there ...milk? No. But the milk of modern websites is comments and accessories you need to run the product on the page. You're not going to apply this if you think literally.

Aware of what shoppers are most likely to purchase, designers of retail outlets purposely give them a view of items that they may have an interest in, but are less likely to purchase, before directing them to the items they came to buy. This increases sales of non-essential items that usually yield a higher profit than staples.

Lessons for web design: Although conventional wisdom suggests that users prefer to find information of interest in three clicks or less, designers might consider directing visitors past non-essential content on the path to “must-have” content. If must-have content is to web users as milk is to customers of a grocery store, visitors to your site will likely tolerate a slight detour by the intellectual equivalent of the candy aisle before reaching the information they want.
-- Inconspicuous Consumption: Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design

And if there is one single post on why selling milk online isn't going to work for your service business or other non-milk-selling-business, or why putting a fancy label on spoiled milk doesn't work, or let's have a milk contest of some kind ...then I just give up.

The one redeeming thing about usability which keeps it from being a path to failure is Testing. If They Don't Test, Don't Hire Them (That would be, test with users, in case it wasn't clear)

Paco Underhill -- who advises physical retailers on things like putting milk in the back of stores -- does nothing but study "peculiar humans." He gets all kinds of resistance to his ideas, until they get tested.

I'm not aware of any techniques that Underhill uses that double the traffic into the store. He gets hired to increase conversions. A store that converts twice as much traffic requres half the traffic for the same amount of sales -- but that, too, isn't the point. The store that converts more spends less on driving traffic. Less spent on ads. Less spent on rock bottom prices (because either you're the Walmart in the category -- or you're everybody else when it comes to price).

And guess what. The stores that convert more generally get good word-of-mouth, which drives more traffic.

Let's say you have a really desirable product or service but low page rank. What tends to happen on the web is people remark, and often add a link. This increases 1) Traffic 2) Page Rank

What do people tend to do when the have a boring, me-too product. Do they seek to increase its desirability? Perhaps. Usually they hire a SEO outfit to rig page rank. What happens? Poor conversions. So do they try to increase their conversions or just pile on more traffic. As we know from the spam phenomenon, volume beats quality.

There is just one flaw. There is not an unlimited supply of high-value or higly-targeted potential customers. So conversions makes a lot of sense, and in many cases makes better sense than simply cranking up raw traffic. Of course I'm not against traffic or increasing traffic. But conversions and traffic, usability and desirability, quality content and SEO are not mutually exclusive. I would tend to argue they are mutually dependent and interrelated.

....That is if I ever thought I had to make an argument for points which are so obvious they might as well go without saying -- lest they distract from the topic of the tread.