Web Usability Blog

Remember the adage “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”? While that may be true, it did not mean IBM knew what they were doing – look at them now!

I recall being taught about features & benefits in the marketing part of my MBA. We were told nobody wants a drill - they want a hole. The drill is just a means to an end, so you have to talk about the benefits of the hole not the features of the drill.

Supplier portals must rate as one of the worst areas for UX experiences. Have you been unfortunate enough to have to use the Bravo portal or the ProContract service – horrid, yes? I can only assume they think we will jump through any number of hoops to get their business so they don’t have to care, but it is indicative of a certain mindset.

Like many commentators we think the increasing trend of using hamburgers at desktop screen resolutions is a triumph of bad design over good usability. Primarily because it hides the links. Hamburgers give off no scent for users’ goals, it makes them think – not a good idea – rather than just word match.

Have you come across Daniel Kahneman’s ideas about ‘Fast’ (System 1) and ‘Slow’ (System 2) thinking? The idea is that ‘Fast’ thinking, which controls most of what we do, is intuitive, automatic, experience-based, and relatively unconscious, while ‘Slow’ thinking is conscious, considered and hard work! It is argued that many market research methods (e.g. depth interviews, surveys, focus groups) only get at ‘Slow thinking’ and so are not a good way to get insights into much of what we do that is controlled by our ‘Fast thinking’.

Martha Lane Fox wrote a thoughtful (as ever) piece in The Sunday Times last weekend in which she talks about spreading "digital skills to unite the nation". In the wake of the Brexit vote she argues for an inclusion agenda in which the 12.6 million adults in the UK with no digital skills must have access to high quality and affordable internet infrastructure. She concludes by saying that "tech used well can unite everyone – not just the metropolitan elite".

Recently we have been working with a start-up business developing a new website. They were working on tight timescales and budgets so it was essential that the research delivered added-value: it went well beyond ‘usability testing’ and significantly informed the strategic USP and brand proposition.

I was talking to one of our clients the other day who said that he was seeing a 94% task completion success on his site – needless to say, he was delighted! This was better than I recalled from testing, so I thought I’d dig back into the reports to see what was happening.

I was reading an article in the Sunday papers about middle aged men drinking too much. This was accompanied by pieces by people who drank more than 50 units per week. These were not raving alcoholics but people with good jobs and happy family lives that you might meet in the course of your professional life. They saw their drinking as quite normal and they did not feel it was excessive. I was quite shocked that someone drinking this much might think this ‘normal’ behaviour because it is a long way from my experience.