Comments on: 7 Usability Mistakes Usability Experts Commit

By: David

David — Sat, 18 Dec 2010 20:38:19 +0000

Many points resonate with me as I am building my current website. Similar to the author, I am a self-learner, forsaking training by others (although conferences are a great place to get the pulse of the industry). I have tried to put attractive pictures/images on my site and limit the amount of text in my current website. I try to use tasteful pictures so I’ve been avoiding women pictures for the most part. It is interesting that a picture of the Cecilia String Quartet (4 women) gets a lot of clicks as indicated by Google Analytics. (too bad links are not allowed in posts here) I used to be a nut for large text but that was mainly due to CRT monitors and my not-so-perfect eye-sight; with LCD monitors now, much easier to go small font (but I have to be cognizant of my visitors as well). White was worse with CRT monitors; much better now with quality LCD monitors (good contrast and clarity without the brightness) – far less fatiguing on the eyes. I do use other colors to minimize the white but the main page area is white. The color contrast helps to cut down “all white”. I use Verdana and for headings and find them clean enough.

By: Bruce Criscuolo

Bruce Criscuolo — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 07:24:43 +0000

You are right on. Here’s the deal, designing for usability differs from user experience design which differs from design strategy- usability experts, depending on how fundamentally sound their practice, should help “guide” design based on, at least, a set of heuristics. Interestingly enough, one commonly accepted usability heuristic revolves around whether a site has a clean and minimalist design – by minimal we mean that the design does not step on or inhibit user interaction. Some of the sites mentioned probably don’t pretend to be design agency types so it’s apples to oranges (or Verdana to Arial, both eww). Anyway, to get to the point, so called usability experts shouldn’t be mistaken for (or shouldn’t mistake themselves as) designers (give or take a few super hero pros such as myself – hehe!

By: Henry Gilbert

Henry Gilbert — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:47:38 +0000

Usability experts are NOT often skilled web designers. They are consultants. But sadly – and much to their discredit – prefer to maintain their own website. So naturally it’s going to look crappy.

But that is not to say – they will make other people site uglier.

The problem with your topic here is that it seems to be suggesting: usability experts makes sites uglier.

Jakob Nielsen encourages aesthetics and images as a positive factor to improve usability.

By: Rickey

Rickey — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:22:05 +0000

I’d like to say that all these points are really true but at the time it looks like to be phenomenal. All the developers try to pass to the usability but everybody see the results. It is still the question to discuss.

By: Warren Wojnowski

Warren Wojnowski — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 21:01:29 +0000

Wow. Who would have thought that anyone would, could ever make that many obvious mistakes? This will keep me on my toes!

By: Phao Loo

Phao Loo — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:22:55 +0000

To Lucy Andrez, beautiful women images will eye-catch most readers. Men are attracted because it is natural, women are attracted because they want to know why this girl looks pretty?
Not only women images are successful for website, but also for social networks. You can use it like a photo in social network and you will get many friends especially men.

By: Lucy Andrez

Lucy Andrez — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:57:40 +0000

Is that true images of women have proved most successful at selling magazines? I think writter can also use other object to attract reader interest. I’m a woman but I must say that many other images are more interesting than just women images.

By: martha

martha — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:31:28 +0000

Really great points you have made. Usability site example and the too much text and too large text is just wow.

By: Conor Darcy

Conor Darcy — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:24:50 +0000

I dont think its fair to compare a magazine cover to a website homepage. The purpose of an image on a magazine cover is to draw attention among a shelf load of competiting magazines. To stand out among the crowd and to sell using an article inside. As you never look @ 50 homepages at a time, each one bidding for your attention, you dont need an image to make you enter a particular site. However, websites do need images to bring focus to a particular area of a page and to help the user establish the purpose or theme of the page or site.

By: Julian

Julian — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 19:01:59 +0000

I do only party agree. You’re right when you say that they usually fail at designing web pages, but I really don’t think it is that important for their sites to just look good, or keep texts short and nice to read.

It’s about explaining how you can make applications or website usable. Design is irrelevant to their cause. Usability is universal value but design is a personal choice.

I’ve seen lot of usability reports in the open source world and every good report I’ve seen is a PDF file with at least 40 pages. Usability measures have to be explained in detail, there is no place for short, nice looking but worthless articles.

At leas that’s my opinion.