This is the second part of the “Pleasing Jacob Nielsen” series about how to use Jacob Nielsen’s Top Ten Design Mistakes for 2005 guidelines to get yourself a better website or blog. In the first article in the series we talked about font legibility, standard and non-standard links and flash usage. This one will go on into content, search, browser dependencies and getting data from your users.

Real pages, real content:

Jacob says the web is about lean content, easy to parse and easy to read. But this, you obviously already know. His second point, though, is much more interesting: speak the language of your audience, and not with made-up terms that noone will understand. He also notes that this will increase search engine placement, and he’s right again.

When was the last time you read a whole webpage of content? Is it reasonable to expect users to read whole pages or whole articles? I say we’d like that, but thats not what we get. Let’s be straight forward about this, most likely you will not read this whole article. So that being said, use small, to the point sentences. The odds of people actually reading your content increase a lot.

Site Search

Not all websites have (or need) search built in. Those who do, though, do it wrong sometimes. Think about the goal of search: it allows users to find what they’re looking for if it’s not directly available when they first open up the site. It follows that search is the only vehicle to find content that isn’t directly acessible (and this is a whole new topic, because it should).

It comes down to thinking about your website structure. Are your information pages directly accessible? If not, how many clicks does it take for someone to get to the most remote page? Over three? Rethink the structure, rinse and repeat. Or introduce a good search mechanism that’s both intuitive and that gets people in the remote page in one step (or two).

Browser dependency

It is back. And now, with a twist. Browser dependency goes hand in hand with most of the new ajax-based projects that are emerging on the web. It’s not even about web-standards anymore - its about developers not degrading ajax properly and (many) not caring about the huge cuts in the userbase by neglecting certain browsers (I’ve written more about this here).

Since browser dependency is highly attached to ajax nowadays, here are a few links that may help in degrading ajax gracefully, and properly implementing ajax without harming usability:

• XMLHttpRequest Usability Guidelines
• Usable XMLHttpRequest in Practice
• AJAX Patterns: Design Patterns for AJAX Usability
• The Hows and Whys of Degradable Ajax

Getting data from your users (forms)

Forms have always been one of the most complicated issues with most websites. Websites that require sign-up have forms. And basically if the forms are poorly arranged or are too cumbersome, noone will register - period. Meaning, forms as a point where someone goes from zero to a user of your system are extremely important.

So: use clear forms. Don’t request too much information from your users. Be as clear as possible as to how long it will take for users to complete the process. Make it a good experience.

If you’re designing forms or your site needs them, I recommend Roger Hudson’s Accessible Forms presentation from Web Essentials 2005. Don’t be confused by the look of the slides (oh come on, Roger. Palmtrees?), because the information in there is really helpful. Download the pdf.

Wrapping up the second part

This post was all theory, I know. Some people prefer things with examples like in the first part of this series, but not everything on the web is copy and paste. The best thing to do when developing with usability in mind is to read some theory and think as a user, because if you wouldn’t use your own site, noone else will.

The next (and final) article in this series will be about making yourself stand out, frozen vs liquid layouts and proper image usage. Additionally, I will be writing a lenghtier PDF version of all the blog and website tips I’ve published on webreakstuff in the last few months, and that will be available in the end of the month.

If you need more information about improving your website or just want some information on Usability, Web Standards and Information Architecture, drop me an email. I have been consulting and helping companies create better experiences on the web for a long time now, and will be glad to do the same for you.