Put The Friendly Back In User-Friendly
May 24, 2004 | 
13 Comments
The term “User-Friendly” is pretty straightforward, no? Well, maybe.
I’m not sure what the “official” definition is, but to me it means making something, could be pretty much anything, not only easy for others to use, but attractive or desirable to use as well. You know? Friendly.
This desirability is something that doesn’t seem to get talked about much when we talk about user-centered Web design. We talk quite a bit about ease-of-use but ease-of-use doesn’t necessarily mean friendly. In fact there are some folks out there who treat these things as always in opposition to each other.
I think we need to put a bit more friendly into user-friendly.
User-Friendly By Design
You knew this was coming. The big, bad “D” word. And yeah, by “design” I mean making something aesthetically pleasing. I realize there is a whole lot of grey area here. But here goes.
One of the best ways we can make a Web site (or anything else for that matter) more user-friendly is by making it look good. Sure what looks good to one might not be considered attractive to another, but let’s put that aside for a moment.
I do think in this case the effort does count for something. You’re not going to please everyone, accept that and realize that by making the attempt you will be better off than not.
A designed site can be easy to use, in fact, Design can help further usability efforts in many, many ways. By practicing user-centered design you can take a huge stride to “user-friendly.”
There is no perfect Web design, and designing for the Web can be hard, but that’s no excuse for not putting the necessary effort into your design.
Content Is King!
While design can help make something more friendly, what really matters, especially on the Web, is content.
To be honest I think this is where many, many Web sites really fall short. Considering how hard it is to provide great content, this should hardly be a surprise.
Good, quality content takes lots of effort, lots of time and lots of resources. You can’t just take any old boilerplate text, or repurposed brochure material, slap it up on your site and call it good.
Too bad this is often the case.
User-friendly Web content is:
- Audience Appropriate. I feel this plays a huge part in making a site user-friendly. Know your users (or readers) and try and gain an understand of what they want from your site. For example, if your site is task-based, you might want to keep it to a minimum to avoid overwhelming your users.
- Timely. It’s important to update as frequently as possible, without degrading the quality of the content. This is something I know I struggle with. I often post things I think might be sub-par or half-crocked, simply to get something u p.
- Relevant and consistent. Find your niche, establish your tone and style and stick to it. This will take time and effort, keep at it and do your best.
- Managed. Don’t take on more than you can handle. Large Web sites can quickly grow out of control. Only publish what you can manage.
- Open and Honest. Readers aren’t stupid. Respect them and speak plainly. Don’t get to cute or clever, unless that is what they show up for. Listen to your readers and treat every bit of feedback like it were gold.
There is much more to good, user-friendly, content than what I mention here. I do my best, but I’m no Gerry McGovern. If you are responsible for content creation, put some effort into your content, keep learning and find your style and you’ll be fine.
Bringing It Together
Design and content work hand-in-hand to make a site user-friendly. It takes lots of work and really begins with understanding what your users want. “Usable” isn’t all about ease-of-use, at least in my opinion.
Usability, design, content, accessibility and much more. A great site will do their best to do their best in all these areas.
There is more to the story, but if you start with content and design, keeping the users in mind at all times, you’ll be off in the right direction.
Filed under: IA and Usability
Comments
1. Steven Streight said:
You’re correct about the realms beyond usability. I pondered this very seriously several years ago. While I was impressed with Jakob Nielsen, I thought, “Is usabililty the ultimate, the primary thing?” No.
A pen may be extremely usable, good grip, perfect weight, good flow of ink, no globbing or leakage, etc. Yet you throw it in the garbage. You don’t like pink ink.
Or a coat may be ideal for freezing temperatures, lightweight, easy to wear, not restrictive, etc. Yet you never put it on. It’s ugly and people are appalled at how horrible it looks.
There are many things beyond usabililty and aesthetic quality.
I have developed a proprietary methodology dealing with these various aspects, or “associative factors” that act as a context for usability and aesthetic quality, the friendly aspects, and beyond.
Good post, Keith.
Posted on May 25, 2004 09:59 AM | #
2. DaveP said:
In line with Kieth’s post and Steven’s comment, I think the most important thing to consider is balance.
A site that balances usability, design and content will be a winner. Sites that are skewed towards one direction over the others are just as bad as sites that neglect these aspects completely.
Case in point: Nielsen, who’s moved design so low on the totem pole, that (if first time users of his site are anything like me) the content isn’t read as completely as it should be.
An unbalanced website will result in poor message delivery.
Posted on May 25, 2004 10:34 AM | #
3. Jay Small said:
I think this is why I’ve started favoring the term “customer experience.”
It represent usability, user-friendliness, desirability and satisfaction, among other characteristics architects and designers should be concerned about.
It also does not fall into a trap of presuming only one type of customer; for example, consumers, corporations, or internal constituents.
Posted on May 25, 2004 11:25 AM | #
4. Thomas Baekdal said:
I think you point out the difference between user-friendly and usability. User-friendly is pretty much what you describe; a usable experience in both how it works and how it looks. I do not think usability is about how it looks (graphically) - instead it is about making objects easy to use - often aided with a functional design.
I see a lot of web-designers create design for the sake of appearance. The site might look good (and people like it - it is user-friendly), but the design does not improve the ease of use.
I have been telling my clients for a long time that they should not make graphic design on the web - that is designing the frame, navigation of the page. Instead they should design the content - enhance the content by design.
My point is that if you have a site, and you remove the content - it should look awful - a site without content is useless. Instead if you remove the non-content (navigation, graphic borders etc.) it should look fantastic. This way your site’s focus is the content and your reader’s eyes will automatically be drawn to it - instead of away from it.
On too many sites (over 99%) it is the other way around. The area that is designed is not the content but everything else. You got a spiffy header, a very nice looking navigation and a fantastic background effect. Generally the sites look great, and people will tell you just that. But when you ask them about the content they can not remember what it contained in detail.
Sites like that might look good, and people recommend it because that. But, if the visitors come to the site to see how it is designed - not because of the products it displays - then it is a failure.
If a site sells e.g. coffee machines people should recommend it by saying “Looks this site - I want that coffee machine” - not “look at this site, it looks cool - and the fading effects is fantastic.”
Sites need design, but only for sake of the content. That is a usable and a user-friendly site.
Posted on May 25, 2004 02:46 PM | #
5. Kyle said:
Thomas, I think you miss one big point a bit. That’s the “audience appropriate” part. You point out that:
This may (and I say may because design could perhaps help you buy a coffee maker) be true but it depends on the site and it’s audience.
Look at how many designers Jakob Nielsen turns off. I would think these people are at least part of his audience. They could buy his books or come to hear him speak. Yet because of his design they don’t hear what he has to say at all.
Content can be many things. Content can be images, it can be words, it can be style, it can even be design itself. A good site, as Keith rightly points out will make the best of content and design.
Posted on May 25, 2004 03:08 PM | #
6. Thomas Baekdal said:
Kyle, I am not saying that we should make sites like Jakob Nielsen (i.e. no design at all). I am saying that we should use design for the sake of enhancing the content - not the elements around it.
Posted on May 25, 2004 05:15 PM | #
7. Kyle said:
Well, ok Thomas, if that is all you’re saying… ;)
Posted on May 25, 2004 06:58 PM | #
8. donna said:
No, you’re no Gerry McGovern, which is a great thing in my book and why I read you every day and him never ;)
Good post - all true and important.
Posted on May 25, 2004 07:36 PM | #
9. Keith said:
Aww, thanks Donna! I really appreciate that.
Thomas – I think I get your point and it’s well taken. However, I do think Kyle makes a good point of his own. Design can be a reason to visit a site and if I understand the anonymous bastard (heh) correctly, the lack of a good appealing visual design on Nielsen’s site is exactly what keeps him from getting his message across to what could be a huge audience for him.
But I may be wrong.
Posted on May 25, 2004 07:43 PM | #
10. Joshua Porter said:
Interesting post, Keith.
I found it interesting because of the 5 ways you mention to make your content “user friendly”, none of them have anything to do with how the site looks. In addition, the 5 ways are very difficult to account for.
Even so, I would say that the rest of your article as well as the resulting comments seem to insist such a thing: that appearance is part of the friendliness equation.
I’ve been grappling with this myself. It’s almost as if we can’t help but spend an inordinate amount of time fixated on looks. It goes for many things, of course, like judging books or even people. But we really have little evidence as to a reason why, and when asked, we don’t have a good explanation. (saying it doesn’t make it so)
Here’s one theory: given no concrete way to judge a web site visitors tend to default to something they can judge: appearance. They can judge the way a site looks in relation to other sites. Given that some large percentage of our brain is used for processing visual input, this makes sense to me.
About Nielsen: do you really think he’s failing to get his message across? I’m not sure: to me it seems like designers understand exactly what he’s trying to say and simply don’t agree with his philosophy. Their ire gets manifested in unusual ways (like your group redesign of his page), but I’d bet that ire is based more upon Nielsen’s know-it-all attitude rather than the shoddy design of his web site.
On a not completely unrelated topic ;) people only started saying President Bush looked like a doofus after they realized he was one.
Posted on May 26, 2004 04:01 AM | #
11. Keith said:
Josh – Yeah, I do think Nielsen is failing to get his message across. And it’s for both reasons you state.
I know quite a few working Web designers that don’t read blogs (not even mine), aren’t into standards or usability or anything. These folks have heard of Nielsen, and all they can talk about is the fact that his site is horrible.
I used to be this way as well. I didn’t want to listen to a damn thing he had to say. His tone was strike one. His design was strike two. Luckily I got over it eventually and looked past those things. But I think that is the exception rather than the rule. And to be honest, if his tone bothers me in an Alertbox I rarely read the whole thing anymore.
Not everyone has the time or desire to be active and get past stuff like this. Some people just don’t care enough.
One thing I think Web professionals who are active online, and in the community and who go to conferences and share lessons learned need to realize is that your “average” Web professional doesn’t do this at all.
Sure there are those of us who look past Nielsen’s failings, but there are many out there who don’t.
Posted on May 26, 2004 09:12 AM | #
12. Joshua Porter said:
Keith, you’re right. Not that they need to be, but many designers aren’t aware of Nielsen.
If there are designers out there who haven’t heard of usability (the usability of Nielsen, anyway), then it’s probably not because his web site isn’t pretty…it would be for some other reason, such as the reasons you state (including not caring). There may be people who go to his site and then instantly run for the hills because they can’t stand the blue and yellow, but I don’t think most professional designers are that shallow (for lack of a better term).
Of those who complain about him regularly (who I think we’re really talking about), I was simply positing that perhaps it’s not his site that really irks people, but what he’s trying to say (e.g. “Flash 99% bad”). His site becomes a focal point for discussion, a way to malign him, if you will, after you’ve figured out that you don’t agree with him. Didn’t Andrei H. (who I think is a damn good designer) start out criticizing Nielsen’s Alertbox and then move into criticizing (and suggesting solutions to) his design?
This is not a new idea: someone’s experience of something often has a direct effect on their qualitative assessment of it.
And it’s not necessarily the right idea, either, just food for thought.
Posted on May 26, 2004 01:23 PM | #
13. Vidya Gopinath said:
Web designing and usability have been matters for debate for some time now.Every one has their own views on how a website should look.The site containing animations and funny graphics may attract the eye of the user for a minute.But has any one considered,if the users would re-visit the site,when they think of the long frustrating hours spend trying to download these gratuitous graphics.I know that all of us are connosieurs of art and beauty,so i do not mean to say that a website should look plain with no graphics.What i mean is that a website should be simple with graphics which are light and minimum,and more importance should be given to the usability of a site.Do remember,Competitor’s site is just a click away.
Posted on May 28, 2004 03:36 AM | #
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