Dot Ugh

Communication World, June, 2001 by Cheryl O'Donovan

Are the users of your Corporate website or intranet prisoners of poor site design?

When Jakob Nielsen clicks, people listen. Nielsen, dubbed the "Usability Pope" and described by the Chicago Tribune as the guru "who knows more about what makes the web sites work than anyone else on the planet," is on a quest. His goal: to wipe away the blinking hyperactivity and web clutter, and to restore common sense to site content.

Nielsen isn't just offering an opinion, he's getting web usability down to a science. Until 1998, he was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer and holder of some 50 patents. Today he's an author, columnist and consultant. After international media exposure that includes CNN, U.S. News & World Report and Newsweek, Jakob Nielsen granted this interview for Communication World from his California office. Nielsen does not employ airy MBA platitudes, but is quick on the draw. He's refreshingly direct, like many engineers.

"That's nice," you yawn. "What does a tech have to do with me?" Well, grab a cup of coffee and sit down. In a 1999 survey, the Gartner Group reported the average cost of developing and launching an e-commerce site was U.S.$l million. Some companies invest between U.S. $5 and $20 million to become a "market differentiator." Got your attention now?

"Doesn't apply to me," you sniff, leaning back in your chair. "I'm the intranet czar, and my site receives a gazillion hits daily. N'yah, n'yah." But how are people really using your site? Do they come once (hence the "hit") and leave forever? Another thing: How is it organized? Is the local landfill easier to navigate?

Know that most pop-ups are irritants that users quickly dismiss. Banner ads have had mixed reviews -- most not good. Intranets are usually dismal labyrinths. And tell your designer to go to film school if she wants to do fancy animation.

Simplicity. Usability. It's calmer. It's easier. Your users will thank you.

Start sipping that java. And start reading. Jakob Nielsen provides us with the left-brain insight, pushing aside the jargon, so we can build better sites.

Why do sites fail? As Jakob Nielsen explains, marketers have owned most sites. Most marketers are skilled at one-way marketing -- the one-way print, TV and radio campaigns. That's a cliff's leap from doing a web site. "The better you are in that old world," he says, "the more trouble you may have in the new world. Your instincts may lead you in the wrong direction." A web site is a dialogue, not a monologue.

Begin with your user. Base your site on what your user needs. One airline's web development team had the chutzpah to walk around inside a terminal, stop random travelers and show them a poster board of buttons. They asked, "if you clicked on this, what would you expect?" They chased actual user feedback before designing the home page.

Contrast that to the more typical scenario. First, allocate a large sum of money, enough to choke the CFO. Next, hire pricey top guns to advise. Gather a development team of writers, designers and technical support. Isolate this team, where they can argue over interfaces and features inside their web laboratory. Pacify the storm of opinions by including every single feature and .GIF doodad. Finally, launch the intranet to much fanfare. Weeks later, the crushing truth emerges. No one's using it.

Nielsen's take? The intrepid team pestering those travelers had the right idea.

Ground zero is your user. Don't build some expensive intranet, then go live. First, design a cheap, crude prototype and test it ASAP. Invite a sampling of your users. Encourage them to play around with the buttons. Ask, "What would you like to see?" More important, ask, "What are you trying to do? What information can help you do your job?"

By going the usability route, "you'll get the reality check early," says Nielsen. "Sites fail because there's a lack of understanding of who the users are and what they are trying to do. Human behavior is complicated. Don't guess at it."

User testing is not a focus group. Focus groups are often a facilitated roundtable. Think of user testing as product resting. A moderator provides a minimum of directions and asks the user to test the prototype. Ideally, the creative team and engineers observe users from behind a mirror, as on a TV cop show.

Engineers stop deploring "those stupid users." Marketing focus groups rarely involve the engineers, like application developers. Nielsen thinks that's a big mistake. Once the hard-core engineer watches users explore the prototype, an interesting transformation takes place. Nielsen describes it: "When the first user can't figure out the prototype, the wise-guy engineer cracks, 'Where did you find someone that stupid?' But by the fourth or fifth user who's experiencing that same problem, the engineer won't be saying, 'stupid users,' but 'that's a bad product and we've got to fix it.' Watching users is very motivating. Engineers like to tinker and build. They can go from 'it's cool in its own right' to 'it's cool because it works."'