Capturing thoughts on usability...

See brief answers below

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew O'Riordan [mailto:]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 01:58
> To: Ashley Friedlein;
> Subject: Useability Issues and Ideas
>
>
> Hi Ashley and Paul
>
> I have been a little infatuated with useability lately (had
> to right some PR
> stuff on it, and went a bit Jakob Nielsen mad !!!) and have
> been thinking a
> lot about the site, and have some more ideas I believe will
> help to improve
> the e-consultancy web site.
> Your comments would be really appreciated. I would like to
> try and get
> these changes in after I have added the outstanding
> functionality issues.
> Please give your comments and approval/disapproval, and then
> I will try and
> compile a detailed list (with the help of Ashley) of all the specific
> changes that would facilitate the following points.
>
> PS. Please refer to the bottom of the website as I have
> commented on the
> e-mail sent to Paul re: new home page etc.
>
> Here goes:
> 1. There are areas where I feel it is a little confusing in
> regards to where
> you are in the site. This has mainly come about from the
> browsing sections.
> When you are for example browsing a category (only on
> http://e-consultancy.plastercine.co.uk for now), after clicking on the
> category you are given a list of whitepapers/providers but is
> really unclear
> as to which category you are now browsing. I think this
> should be shown at
> the top.

I agree. What happens when a provider / white paper belongs in multiple categories (as most do)? If you are browsing categories then we should probably show only the category name you are browsing and not the others that the record also sits in. However, do we show any browse categories if you link directly from the homepage to the record, if so which?

> Also, there seem to be a lot of areas where it is unclear how
> to get back to
> your original search or root page. I know there is a
> breadcrumb navigation
> which can be followed chronoligically, but I don't think this
> is solely
> sufficient. I feel we sometimes need to add a link such as
> [back to search]
> etc. This also especially applies to things like the quiz,
> there is no
> obvious way to get back. I think it is important that we
> don't want to
> overwhelm users with choice, but I feel it is appropriate to be able
> navigate back without using the navigation.

Yes. I think that simple Back to search links in appropriate prominent places on the page would help a lot - especially if you have linked direct from the homepage and are not used to the breadcrumb navigation you might otherwise feel a little stuck.

> 2. There are often unclear and unneccessary steps. For
> example, I am in the
> forum section and want to get to the white paper search
> section. I click on
> home, click on knowledge, click on whitepapers and then click
> on search. I
> feel that by the time the user has reached the whitepapers
> section, search
> and browse should be immediately available. The whitepaper
> page serves no
> purpose other than to inform first time users. We need to
> look at areas
> where we can reduce the number of steps.

I agree with the principal - we would need to look at the practice. I think it would certainly help to have links on the homepage to 'Search' under the Providers and White Papers highlighted content so that users can go direct to the search page.

> 3. Need to consider a global search page. I was thinking
> what could be done
> without creating too much work for myself would be to add a
> keyword search
> in the global search page (possibly add a search on the home
> page as well),
> with a drop down to choose the section you wish to search.
> This would then
> just redirect to the appropriate search pages. The other
> option is one
> global search which can search all items. This may prove to
> be quite work
> intensive, though if it would prove to be really useful, I
> suppose I could
> try and think of something.

Certainly bear it in mind. I think the current system - where we link to the search interface around the site - works fine for now as at least it takes the users to a more targeted search interface. However, a global search with the search box on the homepage should certainly be considered.

> 4. What about, for the new home page, adding a link with a
> phrase implying
> "What is this site all about?" for new users.

Yes. I think this could go in the Yellow / Black box where there can't be any personalisation as we don't know who they are.

> 5. Should we be differentiating in any way between links
> which leave the
> site, and links which are internal ? If so, should these be
> a different
> colour. Also, why do we not differentiate between visited
> and non-visited
> links. I think this can sometimes be extremely useful.

I'm not sure about the value of differentiating internal and external links but I think having a vlink colour makes sense. I would suggest we use the standard purple-ish (default) colour as we have gone with the traditional blue link colour. Can you change this in a global style sheet?

> 6. With regards to clicking on a forum posting from the home page, and
> taking them to forum section, I do not quite agree. I feel if a user
> follows a link, it is most likely they would like to see the
> article/posting
> that they have just seen a preview of. I think most users
> would not know
> where to go after this to find the message they intended to
> see.

As you said in a separate e-mail I think you misunderstood what I said - I agree with what you are saying, it just wasn't working when I looked at it (and still isn't at time of writing).

Maybe we
> should create a special page specifically for items such as
> this where the
> message is shown, but all other the groups are also showing
> so that the user
> has to then proceed to a forum group from that page ??
> Also, I don't think the forum home page is working correctly.
> It is very
> difficult to, at a glance, get a good idea of all the forums.
> Maybe their
> descriptions need to be more precise, or need to be laid out
> differently.

I think maybe there's just too much on the page? To me the forum headings are fairly clear and self explanatory - so perhaps we don't need the desciptions at all?

> 7. Netscape support. I know the site currently supports
> Netscape, but it the
> support is not brilliant. As 12% of our users are netscape
> users, I think I
> should put a little more work in to replicate more closely
> the IE version
> for NS.

Certainly. You're signing yourself up for work there!

> 8. Agreed for the home page (not so much for other pages) that all key
> elements should fit into a 800x600 display.
>
> 9. What about key links at the bottom of the page. Bottom of the page
> linking is very common, and is very useful when users have to
> scroll their
> page.

Good point. Could replicate the key links as they appear in the left hand navigation on the homepage on all pages. Maybe they could go in the grey bar itself?

> 10. I still feel that the forum needs a little work to fit in
> with the style
> of the rest of the site. I would appreciate some
> comments/suggestions from
> Paul in regards to this. I think some subtle changes would
> probably do
> wonders to facilitate this.

Over to Paul... Would be good to get some real users feedback on this.

> 11. What about capturing the keywords used in searches. I
> could filter out
> all noise words, and then we can begin to build stats on
> which topics users
> are most searching for. This will give us a really good idea of what
> potentially we are missing, or should be focussing more
> attention on. This
> would be most effective in regards to the global search tool
> (if we choose
> to create one).

Yes. This is something we have discussed before and we should do - just a matter of time and prioritisation.

> 12. Once again, broken link checking is still not being
> performed. I will
> try and get this one sorted before our PR and e-mail
> campaigns begin. I
> have recently come across a broken link in the whitepapers.

As above - definitely something we should do, just a matter of time and prioritisation. I have come across several broken links - all in white papers. I find them by following external links that users have followed - only to find 404 erros which is obviously not a good impression for users.

> 13. A Site News and Press Releases section would probably be
> really useful.
> I don't however feel these sections should fall solely under
> about. There
> should be other references to items such as Press Releases etc.

We have this in the About section (commented out at the moment) as you suggest. I'm not convinced we need to highlight it any more than this. We can always link to press releases using Site Notes. More importantly, anything of any interest to the users should be communicated to them direct by e-mail.

> 14. Do you feel "contact us" is prominent enough ??? Don't
> know myself, I'm
> unsure if I think it is because I am so accustomed to the site.

I think it is. It also appears as a link within the body of the content where relevant. Perhaps we could add another link underneath the Legal / Privacy policy text at the bottom of every page for those that have scrolled down and also because that is a common place to look for contact info.

> 15. We do not have a help area at all. Not sure if we need
> one though, but
> it could potentially be really useful. I think to some
> degree the site is
> self-explanatory enough, especially considering the target market.

I don't think we need help - there is a help section in the forums and FAQs in About. If we need a general help then probably we are doing something wrong!

> 16. Something I was thinking about is that in Microsoft ASP,
> you can detect
> if there has been an error on a previous page. I should
> probably try and
> detect all scripting run-time errors and e-mail them to
> myself or log them
> etc. This would help us to find all pages which are raising errors.

Volunteering yourself for more work...

> 17. Ashley, would it be wise for us to sit down at some stage
> (possibly this
> weekend) and consider all reasonable scenarios that Client &
> Service users
> (essentially our 2 target markets) would follow when visiting
> the website.
> We could then evaluate if we feel the site meets those needs.

Good usability practice. We aren't necessarily the best people to do it. Perhaps I should talk to my usability friend again and get him to run a few accompanied surfing sessions? We should do this post current updates.

> 18. I have not looked at the stats, but are we monitoring the
> entry points
> to the website. Do users enter the site in areas other than
> the home page.
> If so, we should ensure those pages too contain all necessary
> content, links
> etc.

I've been looking at these stats and users are entering elsewhere / bookmarking pages. I think the homepage link and breadcrumb should get them wherever else they want to go - I don't think users are entering in places other than the homepage unless they have it bookmarked i.e. all new visitors come to the homepage as far as I can tell. THe search engines that I have looked at point only to the homepage as well.

> 19. Something I was thinking about was seperating the admin
> site and the web
> site with different urls. This will ensure our statistics are more
> accurate. Not sure how easy this will be, but I don't think
> it will be too
> hard. i.e. we could have http://admin.e-consultancy.com for all admin
> functions.
Seems sensible.

> 20. Lastly, and I feel this would be a really nice feature
> which could be
> accomplished without toooooo much work. If we logged more
> closely what each
> user did to the database i.e. which whitepapers they viewed,
> which solution
> providers etc. it would serve 3 purposes:
> 1. We could gather general usage statistics on general areas
> of interest.
> 2. Users would be more accurately profiled, and this could a
> profile based
> upon the content categories. i.e. user views 20% Content, 15% PR, 12%
> Technology.
> 3. We could create a feature for following up on getting a rating and
> comments in regards to whitepapers and solution providers.
> This could be
> done by upon the user's next visit, it could be flagged up
> that the user
> viewed a whitepaper last time they visited, and do they wish
> to comment/rate
> the whitepaper. We could even have a follow up e-mail, but I
> am unsure if
> this is internet-savy. I would probably get quite aggravated myself,
> especially when e-consultancy is unsure as to whether the
> user actually read
> the whitepaper or not.
Some nice personalisation ideas there - would have to think through in more detail. However, the more data we can capture on users (assuming this does not negatively impact performance to any great extent) the better as this will help with future campaigns, marketing, personalisation etc.

> That's it.
>
> Here are my comments on the e-mail re: home page changes.
> >> - I think the yellow/blank personalisation box should be on both
> registered
> >> / non-registered screens. For non registered people (or
> not logged in) it
> >> would contain content to promote registration (which I can create).
> All good to me.
>
> >> - This means that we can get rid of the "Register now to
> get the best out
> of
> >> the site. Why register?" sentence at the top of the page.
> This sentence
> >> appears on the registered users' version as well which it
> doesn't need
> to.
> Are you saying only remove it on the non-registered page.
>
> >> - Unless you have a high resolution, the page currrently scrolls
> vertically
> >> and you lose some of the content 'below the fold' (see cut off in
> registered
> >> version image). This is a shame. I also think the News
> content is less
> >> important than this site content. I've attached an
> alternative layout for
> >> the homepage which puts the news at the bottom of the
> page. See what you
> >> think.
> Seems good to me. We could then put more news stories in
> even (maybe 5) as
> they will go off the bottom of the page anyway.
>
> Later on, we should possibly consider allowing the home page to be
> personalised to some degree ?
>
> Got nothing more to say. I await your comments/suggestion/criticisms.
>
> Cheers.
>
> Matt