One of the assignments fr my Web Development class is to do some research on usablility. A fairly vague topic to begin with, but upon further research I have found it to be quite interesting. I followed the recommendation of my professor and googled Jared Spool. He started User Interface Engineering in 1988, and has successfully created a niche market for web site evalustion. As I read through some of his blogged info, I was amazed at how well he was able to explain my own use of the web, and how much I agreed with his approach to web-site design.
I had noticed over time that most sites were going for the paired down sexy look. It looks really cool when you first get to the site, but my visits were always cut short due to lack of navigation. I had no desire to fish through the "sexiness" to find what I was looking for. Spool's idea for link-rich pages makes perfect sense. If I approach the web as a tool for the dissemination of information, it makes sense to make the information easily accessible.
Furthermore, it has caused me to take a look at the manner in which I was developing sites for my class requirements. At first I thought it needed to be fancy, and look like chanel. Now, I am satisfied to have a page that provides my teacher with easy access to my completed assignments, and a more manageable format. Good information to have as I am just getting started.
2 comments:
I find the link intensive website are in fact the easiest and most productive to navigate. In web site development I find the less is more approach to be wholly superior. I also find it interesting that it coincides with the latest Hitwise News and Media Weekly Report, the websites that received the most traffic were all link intensive websites. Coincidently, I got the link from The Drudge Report which receives over 20 million hits in any given 24 period. This is represents more the 1.5% of all web traffic that is routed through the website. I find that volume staggering and appropriated considering that Matt Drudges stripped down link machine is a glorified meta search engine for current events.
Usability is worthless without content. Web 2.0 sites are both fancy and ultra-usable for the most part. Look how fast the Google pages load, and how simple they are. They also look sexy as me. So does Facebook, WordPress pages, Blogger, etc.
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