Don ' t make me think excerpts and impressions

Don't make me think.

--krug the first law of usability

It doesn't matter how many times you click, as long as you don't have to think, make a clear choice. The second law of--krug availability

Remove the normal text on each page,

And then cut the rest of the text out half.

--krug Third Law of usability

2.1 The first fact that We're not reading but scanning

2.2 We don't make the best choices But we're satisfied.

The user will choose the first reasonable option, which is the satisfaction strategy, once we find a link that seems to jump to where we want to go, that's a great opportunity for us to click on it. Finding the best strategy is difficult, it takes a long time, and the satisfaction strategy is more efficient.

2.3 We are not inquiring, we are barely coping.

3 Billboard design 101 Law, for scanning design, not for reading design

There are 5 important areas to keep in mind to ensure that they see and understand your site as much as possible.

3.1 Create a clear visual hierarchy on each page

3.2 Try to use customary usage

3.3 Dividing a page into clearly defined areas

3.4 Clearly identifies the place to click

3.5 Minimize interference and reduce visual noise

4 animals, plants, inorganic materials (why users prefer a choice without thinking)

three times no thinking, no clear click is equivalent to a need to think about the click

5 omitting unnecessary text

Strong words are concise, there should be no extra text in the sentence, there should be no extra sentences in the paragraph. Similarly, there should be no extra lines on the painting, and there should be no spare parts on the machine.

Most of the text on most pages is just in place, because no one is going to read them. But because they are there, the extra text implies that you might really need to read them to understand what's going on, which often makes the page seem more difficult.

Remove some of the benefits of text that no one will use:

1 can reduce the noise of the page;

2 make the useful content more prominent;

3 make the page shorter so that users can see more content at a glance on each page without having to scroll the screen.

In fact, the words I speak are two special words: welcome words and instructions

You can-and should-try to reduce the number of welcome words that can be reduced by as much as possible.

If the instructions are lengthy, the user will have little chance of finding the information they need.

Your goal should be to completely eliminate the instructions by making each content self-explanatory, or to do this as much as possible, when the instruction text becomes completely unnecessary. You should remove them all.

Several aspects that must be handled correctly

Street signs and breadcrumbs Design Navigation

If you can't find the direction on your website, people won't use your site.

Search and navigation corresponding to the site

If we want to revisit something on the site, instead of relying on his physical feelings there, but remembering his position at the conceptual level and then reconnecting to the past, this is the bookmark-the personal shortcut to storage-for such an important reason, That is why the click-through rate of the back button occupies the 30%-40% of all the hits on the network .

Only 4-5 utilities can be placed on persistent navigation -the few tools the user uses most

One of the most important elements in persistent navigation is the button or link that sends us back to the homepage so that a button that returns to the home page is always visible, either a button or a picture

provide search, like to search more users than like to browse, it should be a search box, most users login to a new site, the first thing is to scan the page, see there is no search box, remember a simple formula, an input box, a button, and ' Search ' (search) two words, don't get too complicated-stick to this formula, especially to avoid-fancy words, just instructions, options, if you use the search as the name of the input box, then you should use "Go" as the name of the button.

The name of the page is the road signs on the web, like road signs, if everything goes well, I may not pay attention to the page name, but I think I may not be in the wrong direction, it is necessary to see the page name to determine the direction, so 1 each page needs to have a name, 2 and the page name to appear in the appropriate location, 3 names to be eye-catching, 4 names to be and click on the same link; Highlight my current location on the web;

The breadcrumbs Menu (the Hierarchy menu) also tells you where you are--they are called ' breadcrumbs ' because they remind people of the breadcrumb trail that Hansel threw in the forest because he and Cretel can find their way home. For sites that really have large databases and complex hierarchies. such as Yahoo's website directory.

As far as I know, About.com's bread crumbs are perfect, and it embodies several best practices.

1 put them at the top (the top of the page, not with the navigation Zhengchong)

2 use ' > ' to split the hierarchy. Various attempts seem to have confirmed that the greater than sign is the best delimiter

3 Using Small Fonts

4 Use text: Here you are

5 Add the last element bold

6 did not use them as the name of the page

labels are a great choice for large site navigation because

1 They are self-evident

2 They are hard to miss (I was surprised when I was doing a ' user click Test ', and I was amazed to see how serious it is that people are blind to the button bars at the top of the page, but the labels are visually unique and difficult to ignore.

3 They are flexible (the label style can become very beautiful)

4 They imply a physical space.

The label does a good job of Amazon, and it does a little bit of 3:

1 correctly drawn, the selected label should be displayed before the unselected, not the label of the shape of the label

2 color coded to make colour blindness also readable (using the same color shades)

3 When you enter the site, a tab is selected

Trunk test

Now that you have a look at all the navigation sections, you can do the following Web navigation tests, and here's the test. Think about you being blindfolded, locked in the trunk of your car, and you'll be on a Web page of a Web site after a while. If the page is well designed, you should be able to answer the question without hesitation when you remove the blindfold:

1 What is this website? (Site ID)

2 I'm on that page? (page name)

3 What are the main sections of this website? (List of columns)

4 What options do I have on this level? (Navigation on this page)

5 Where am I in the navigation system? (' You are here ' indicator)

6 How do I search? (Search box)

Home Design

The first thing to admit is that the homepage is not under your control

Home page to complete the task:

1 Site logo and mission (logo and what can be found on this site)

2 Site Hierarchy--handled by persistent navigation

3 Search Most sites need to set a highlighted search box on the home page

4 Guide. Like the cover of a magazine, the homepage has to appeal to me with hints of ' wonderful content ' inside.

5 content updates. If the success of the site depends on whether I often come back to visit, then the home page should have some frequently updated content. --should not be backwater

6 links need to reserve space on the homepage for advertising, cross-promotion, co-branded links and so on.

7 shortcuts The most frequently accessed snippets of content are worth placing links on the home page so users are not looking around.

8 Register, Login.

9 Let me see what I'm looking for

10 ... And what I'm not looking for. Well, maybe I'll be interested.

11 tell me where to start. A new web site, the feeling is terrible.

12 build credibility and trust. For some visitors, the home page will be the only chance your site has left them a good impression.

Home page should--convey the overall impression, the faster the better, the clearer the better, when I first entered a new website, the homepage should answer four questions in my mind:

What this site is, what I can do here, what's on the website, why I should be here, not somewhere else;

Everything on the homepage helps us understand what the site does, but there are two important locations on this page, and we want to be able to find clear statements from these two places.

1 slogan, one of the most valuable locations is near the site ID, and when we see a phrase associated with the site ID, we know it's a slogan, and then we'll take it as a description of the entire site.

2 Welcome ads, welcome ads is a brief description of the site, in the home page of the first place to display, do not need to scroll the screen to see.

There is nothing better than a good slogan, the slogan is a refined short sentence, depicting the entire enterprise, summed up what he is.

A good slogan should be clear, yanzhiyouwu and moderate in length, obviously.

Test: You can't just rely on your own judgment, you have to show this to people outside the company, let them tell you whether the design has achieved the goal, because only the "site purpose" of the lack of the company's internal personnel will not notice.

When entering a new website and quickly scanning the homepage, I should be able to clearly know:

If I want to search, you can start here.

If I want to scan, I can start here.

If I want to scan the most exciting content of the site, you can start here

On sites built for a process that contains a series of steps, the starting point of the process should be conspicuous, and in those sites that require new users to sign up and log in, the location of registration and login should be highlighted.

Unfortunately, the need to sell goods sometimes drowns out the above mentioned places. If the home page is full of yelling ' Start here! ' No, click me first! ' It's hard to find these beginnings.

The best way to avoid this situation is to make the search box look like a search box, so that the column list looks like a column list. Also, be sure to add text descriptions to them, such as ' Search ', ' Browse by category ', ' Sign in ', ' Start Here ' (for multi-step processes).

Home navigation and persistent navigation can be different, but not far apart, the most important thing is to keep the column name unchanged, the same text and the same grouping, as much as possible to maintain the same visual cues are also useful: the same font, color and case.

10 cents a day usability testing

Make the test simple-so you can test it well

Several facts about the test:

1, if you want to build a good website, be sure to test

Testing is more like inviting friends from the field to visit, and inevitably, when you're playing around with them, you'll see things you wouldn't normally notice, because you're too familiar with them, and you realize that there are a lot that you take for granted, but not for others.

2, testing a user is better than not doing a test twice

3, in the project, test a user early better than the final Test 50 users

Once a website is put into use, it's not so easy to change him, and some users refuse to make any changes, because even small changes can have a profound effect on them, so any method that helps prevent you from making mistakes at the start is a good deal.

4. If the users who are testing are close to the users who may be using the site, then it is good, but more importantly, to test early and often.

5. The key to testing is not to prove anything or disprove anything, but to understand your judgment.

6, the test is an iterative process.

7, there is nothing more important than the response of the site users

Usability tests for a jump-off on a high price

At the very beginning, usability testing is expensive, you need to build an availability lab, an observation room behind one-way glass, at least two cameras to record the user's reflection and target objects in use, and a large number of test users to get a statistically significant result, which is scientific , it will cost $2 to $50,000, so it won't happen very often.

How many users should I test for the usability test of a jump sale?

In many cases, I think that the ideal number of users per round of tests should be three, up to four, the top three users are likely to encounter almost all the most obvious problems, and more importantly to do more rounds of testing, rather than write down every round of tests found in all the problems. Testing only three users will help you make sure you get to the next round of tests quickly.

Loose recruiting, Curve rising

1, in fact, we are all beginners.

2, the design of the site only your target group can use, this is usually not a good idea.

3. Provide reasonable incentives (remuneration)

4, before the test to avoid the site (or the structure behind the site) to pre-discussion.

You can now use the Recorder software directly.

The key after that is to let him talk and understand how he uses the Web, roughly dividing what kind of user he belongs to and knowing what he's thinking when he browses the site. Whenever possible, try to get the user to say something when choosing a task.

Give him 3-4 more missions and add up to no more than 45 minutes.

Review test results immediately

1 Classification of problems--review the questions you see and decide which issues need to be corrected

2 Problem Solving-find out how to fix these problems

What you learn from usability testing always makes sense, and every person who observes the process can see these problems,

Problems:

The user does not know the concept

They can't find the word they're looking for.

Too much content.

Some question classification guidelines:

1 Ignore kayak (kayak) issues. In any test, the user is temporarily in error, and then return to the original track without any help, which is like a boat boat capsized, no harm is not a foul. As long as 1 of those who are in trouble find themselves straying from the original topic 2 they try to get back in the same direction without needing help 3 this situation does not seem to disrupt their activities. You can ignore these, and if users are always right about where to find the content they need, they're ready.

2 Resist the added impulse. When the test is clear that people do not understand something, most people's first reaction is to add some content, such as some comments or some guidance notes. The right solution is often to remove some (or some) confusing content, rather than adding another distraction.

3 Catch the fruit that is enough

* Epiphany Type

* Cheap Type

Sometimes the real challenge is not to fix the problems you find, but to fix them without destroying the parts that are already working.

One morning per month: we're asking for so much

Ideally, I think each Web development team should draw a morning's time each month for usability testing.

One morning, you can test 3-4 users and then summarize it during lunch time, that's all.

Usability is the basic courtesy of

Why your website should be respectable.

Goodwill Memory

Several ways to reduce goodwill:

* Hide the information I want; the most common case is to hide the phone number, shipping and price of the customer service.

Punish me for not acting in your way; many websites stubbornly insist on not adding spaces to credit card numbers, but these spaces will help to write the numbers correctly, so don't let me jump in the hoop because you don't want to write a little more code.

* Perfunctory me, deceive me. We all notice the hypocrisy of sincerity, also hate the hypocrisy of concern, think about every time you hear ' your phone is important to us ' when what is the feeling of it!

* Set me up, have to wait for a long flash introduction, or browse up to a few pages of self-feeling good market pictures, it's clear that you don't understand or care-I'm busy.

* Your website does not look professional, if your site looks messy, poorly organized, unprofessional, no effort on the layout, then users will lose goodwill.

Several ways to improve goodwill:

* Know what people want to do on your site and make them easy to understand.

* Tell me what I want to know *

* Minimize Steps

* Take a little thought *

* Know what questions I may have and give answers, keep up to date, and remain candid.

* Provide me with assistance, such as printing a friendly page; people want to print a few pages of a story with a single click.

* Easy to recover from errors; Please provide an elegant way to remove me from the error.

* If you are unsure, remember to apologize. If you can't do it, at least let them know you know you're causing them inconvenience .

Accessibility Cascading style sheets and your

Accessibility is part of usability

Unless you are making a general decision to make sure that people with disabilities are not your target users, you cannot say that it is useful if your site is not accessible.

Almost every site I visit doesn't pass my three-second accessibility test-increase the font with the browser's TEXTSIZE command

Support Accessibility is the right thing to do

Five things you can do right now to improve accessibility

* Correcting confusing usability issues makes the site better for the rest of us, making it better for people with disabilities

Screen reader users use their ears to scan

* Read a book on web accessibility

* Start using cascading style sheet CSS

CSS benefits: No restrictions on format control, flexibility, browser consistency, serialization of your content (you can use CSS to place content in the source file in order (which is what screen reader users will hear) and place it on the page where you want it); Allows you to redefine the size of the text.

* To pick the fruit that can be won

Danger of requiring too much data

Asking for unnecessary information can have three serious consequences:

* You often don't get the real data

* You get fewer complete forms. The less data you ask for, the more submissions you get, the more often people are in a hurry on the web, and if the form is longer than they think, a lot of people will be bothered to fill it out.

* Make your website image drop. If you only ask for the necessary data, then you have established a connection with them and can get more information in future exchanges.

Remember the following three principles:

* Only let me provide the information required to complete this office.

* Do not ask for too many optional information, just see so many fields to fill in is unpleasant, the requested optional information will be more replies.

* Tell me to provide my own information will be rewarded, clearly tell me what I will get after registration, give me an e-newsletter sample, etc.

Add "attention points" to your site

Most of the time on the Internet, people don't want to be glued, they just want to do some work, try to interfere with their present task or stick with them just to make them feel annoying and fooled, which is the worst kind of compulsive marketing. Trying to increase the point of attention is also usually a hindrance to them. For example, a large picture, a long loading time, and a smaller space for the page to place the target content; attracting attention to music and animation is a lot of people can't stand.

Of course there are exceptions, and on some websites these fancy forms are meaningful, those that offer audiovisual enjoyment: entertainment sites (about music movies, etc.), pure brand websites (such as a breakfast cereal product), web developers ' footage sites, etc. But if your site is not there, setting more points of attraction will only backfire.

There is no absolute

To know that the boss may not be wrong, after sticking to a bad design idea, there is almost always a good (or at least not so bad) intention to try to understand that good intentions can often find another way to achieve the goal.

Don ' t make me think excerpts and impressions