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Google’s Android May Pay Billions To Apple
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Tag Archives: usability
Instapaper should be ReadBag
Instapaper only came on my radar screen this morning when I read a post from Mark Evans, a blogger worth watching, who was extolling its virtues. As the FAQ says:
Instapaper facilitates easy reading of long text content. We discover web content throughout the day, and sometimes, we don’t have time to read long articles right when we find them. Instapaper allows you to easily save them for later, when you do have time, so you don’t just forget about them or skim through them.
I have been using ReadBag, which for me was OK and has some neat features as you can see from the ReadBag blog. Once I had checked out Instapaper however I was hooked. Some people like the fact that with ReadBag you login via your Google account. That is an inconvenience sometimes. Instapaper has the easiest possible of entries: your username, your email address – it’s whichever you choose. That was the clincher for me.
In general both do very similar jobs but Instapaper shows more of the KISS principle. Its elegant design made me think of those fine appliances that Braun often makes. It’s the ultimate in usability without any unnecessary features.
The only quibble I have is its name. It rolls off the tongue easily enough but what on earth does it mean. That is the only aspect on which I think ReadBag did it better. I guess it’s because it also has a feature, Give Me Something To Read. So if the Internet flood has given you absolutely nothing of interest, then you can check out this online paper. Do not try it until October 6th, since the editor is currently on his honeymoon.
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Website Reviews Free, Really?
SMM has now launched a very useful website mini-review service. In doing market research on other website review services, some interesting aspects came to light that many will find of interest.
Free Is Never Free
That innovative thinker, Chris Anderson, will be publishing his new book, Free, at some time in 2008, we presume. This will discuss giving zero cost products/services away for free and then making money on upgraded versions. That’s one of the opportunities this zero-cost virtual world now gives us. A more important sub-theme in the book is that of course everyone pays for such products or services by investing their personal time in them. This means that you should be even more skeptical in checking the teeth of any gift horses. Looking after that horse could involve major effort and expense.
This is particularly important in thinking about website review processes. Whatever you learn from such a process may well involve you in major effort to implement the findings. Given the importance of your website and of your time, it’s important to make the right choice.
Who can best assess your website’s performance?
Whatever objectives you as the owner may have for your website, they can only be achieved if there are enough visitors to the website and if they can take the actions that you hope for. So it boils down to good visitor traffic and visitors having satisfactory experiences on the website. Both aspects are tough to evaluate. If you do not think so, just spend a little time checking out the excellent research work that Jared Spool, and his team at UIE (User Interface Engineering), do on website usability. There’s more to the way visitors move around a website than the you might have imagined.
Which website review process is best for you?
Assuming that you are not about to invest in a massive program of visitor testing of the website, some simpler process that looks at all aspects of performance must be found. All aspects of performance covers a lot of ground. To get a sense of this, you might wish to review a very long checklist for website review put out by Polson Enterprises. Unfortunately this has not been updated since 2006, but most of it is still very appropriate. It stretches to fifteen pages and includes almost 300, often meaty, paragraphs on different aspects of website performance.
A website review covering that degree of detail is a major undertaking. A better initial step is to take a ‘big picture‘ or ‘helicopter vision‘ approach. This will help to identify where work may be needed. If you are searching for free resources for this big picture approach, there are two main alternatives. Some Forums offer such ‘big picture’ website reviews and some experts will do such reviews but require the freedom to publish their work.
Forums Offering Website Reviews
The type of website review you will get from a Forum depends on the interests of its members and their skills and experience. You should only consider active forums where you’re likely to get a number of members commenting. Three Forums seem to do a reasonable job in this respect:
- Estetica Design Forum > Graphic Design & Web Design Critique
Given the fields of interest of its members, you might expect a review that will put much more emphasis on graphic design aspects of the website. - Web Design Forum, UK > Web Designing Resource > Website Reviews
Checking on activity in other threads, although the main emphasis of the Forum is Web design, some attention is paid to other Internet marketing aspects. - Cre8asite Forums > Web Site Building, Testing and Support > Website Hospital
The Cre8asite Forums (where I moderate) covers all aspects of web design and Internet marketing. Reviewers would therefore bring a variety of perspectives in their comments.
Experts Offering Free Website Reviews
If you do not mind an expert giving a public review of your website, then there are a number of experts you can consult.
For example, Jackie Baker at Search Engine Guide offers a weekly site clinic column. As she says:
Small businesses are invited to submit their websites for review. Can’t beat a little free advice, right? I’ll be looking at the design, copy, usability, SEO, marketing, and any technical issues that may prevent websites from drawing loyal, active visitors and meeting goals. Each week, I’ll give the top five issues the website owner/manager can address to significantly improve performance.
Scott Hendison offers a Free SEO Site Review. As he explains:
For a limited time, you can get a video made of your own website, seeing how it complies with generally accepted search engine optimization best practices.
…
In exchange, all I ask from you is that you agree to allow me to make my information public, so that others may learn from the experience. Selected video reviews will be shared on my site and on my blog.
Such expert views are likely to be well-founded, particularly since the expert is also going public and their reputation will be affected by what they reveal.
Free Website Reviews Come With A Risk
There is a risk in having your website reviewed in public. The UK Web Design Forum outlines this well:
When posing a link to a site to be reviewed remember that some people may not like your site and could leave comments to that effect. These threads can appear on a search engine results for your website or other searches, so if you get negative comments people who search for your site may see these.
Please be sure that you don’t mind that some members may not like your design and may criticise the work you have done. Most of these members will offer opinions on how to improve, which is what this section of the forum is about. So if you are looking for helpful advice and a honest view of your site this is the perfect place to do it.
Really all we are saying is post your sites at your risks, this forum will not be held responsible for any loss of business or negative things that happen due to you deciding to place your site here for a review.
Time Is Money
Each webmaster will decide for herself or himself how to balance the usefulness of the website review, its cost and the time it takes to get it. However it is done, it is important to have your website performing well and that requires knowledge. SMM is now offering a Website Mini-Review service that gives good value in getting the right big picture view. It’s not free, but it may be less costly, taking everything into account, than these other free services.
If you have your preferred method of assessing the performance of a website that you think others might find useful, why not give details in a comment.
Voice Search On Mobile Phones For A Better User Experience
Fingers do not walk well on cell phones.
Bill Meisel, president of TMA Associate and the non-profit Applied Voice Input Output Society arranged the Voice Search Conference held in San Diego, California, March 10-12. One question posed there, according to Usability News, was Will Voice Search be THE Usability Breakthrough for Mobile Phones?
The dilemma according to Meisel is:
It’s not unusual for user interfaces to get “stuck” on one model. The layout of keyboards hasn’t changed for decades, for example, despite some efforts to make it easier to use (by putting oft-used letters under the strongest fingers). The telephone’s 12-button keypad is similarly persistent. Persistence of the user interface is a major barrier to increased use of mobile devices beyond communication.
He believes that “voice search” will come to dominate mobile phones. He has some powerful companies who share his view: just think Google, Microsoft and Nuance to name but three. This is an idea whose time has come.
Do You Want The Full Web On Your Phone?
Preaching to the choir on cell phones
One of the topics that does not receive enough attention in web design is Usability. That’s true even for web pages designed to be seen with desktop PCs. User tests just don’t get done. User experience is something of concern only to a fraction of all web designers. Perhaps in some cases it stems from the tyranny exerted by some graphic designers. Just like some architects, they know what is best for us.
When it comes to web pages that may be seen on a cellular phone, the challenges are even greater. Of course there is something appealing about the notion of web pages that can be seen satisfactorily on all devices, whatever their screen resolution. It’s called the one Web principle. The WAP Review is promoting this with its request for The “Real” Web on Phones.
The mobile web is always evolving and one current trend is the rise of the full web on phone. By the full web, I mean being able to use any and all the web content available on a PC on a mobile. It’s happening, thanks to better browsers and transcoders that can render almost any page on a phone screen. I’ve still believe that a made for mobile page will give a better user experience than a programmatic conversion of a page designed for an 600X600 px screen into something that fits the 176×220 px window of a mobile. But we need the full web on mobile phones too.
There are many who are strong proponents of this view. The Opera browser has done sterling work to create a version, Opera Mini, to handle such full web pages and has received critical acclaim. Nevertheless even though the experts are comfortable with all this, how do persons in the street feel about what appears on their cell phones? I believe if user tests were done on what is acceptable on a cell phone, very much simpler web pages would be needed for mobile devices.
The Google search web page has been one of the best examples of simplicity even for desktop PC web pages. Perhaps that will be one of the spin-offs of their Open Handset Alliance. It may well be that such simpler web pages would also need to be designed to work with voice commands. That’s moving even farther away from what works on desktop PCs.
Free 411: GOOG or CALL
Both Google and Microsoft have now introduced their voice-based local search facility for your phone. This service is only currently available in the United States. Even though I live less than 20 miles from the US border neither service works here. Last week it was a little clearer. Calling GOOG-411 ( 1-800-466-4411 ), I was told that the service was not available. Calling CALL-411 ( 1-800-225-5411 ), I got a busy signal. This week it is less satisfactory. The Google service gives me information on Langley, Washington when I ask for Langley, British Columbia. The Microsoft service tells me repeatedly, “I didn’t get that”. Presumably it’s only a matter of time until both services are available here.
Tom Spring of PC World was able to do a matched comparison. In his opinion, the result currently is a draw. Both services delivered the correct result, with Google taking a little longer since it repeats the request for confirmation. He has an interesting comment that the Google service is much simpler while the Microsoft service is slightly confusing in offering more choices. It’s perhaps no coincidence that this mirrors how both approach the regular keyword search. Google has that beautifully simple search page. Microsoft usually offers search within a portal page that flags the other services they have available.
It would be interesting to know whether either or both do user tests in deciding which format they will follow. Usability or the science of creating satisfactory user experiences regrettably does not receive the attention it should. Watching how typical users complete tasks as they use a particular service or website is an easy way to confirm that the best choices are being made. Given the expense of creating such services, it would seem foolhardy not to spend the limited extra dollars involved in checking whether the users think you have it right.
Related:
GOOG-411, A Harbinger Of The Mobile Web
GOOG-411 or CALL-411 – Voice-actuated Mobile Web
BTW, Live Search 411 Is Taking On GOOG 411
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