Andreas Boehmer [Addictive Media] wrote:
> Somebody pointed out this article by our friend Jakob Nielsen to me:
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html
> Let's start with this little comment at the beginning:
> "For this year's list of worst design mistakes, I decided to try something
> new: I asked readers of my newsletter to nominate the usability problems
> they found the most irritating."
> How useless is that?! People who subscribe to Jakob Nielsen's newsletter are
> *not* normal. They are people who show interest in Usability, people who
> have got an above average understanding of Website Structure and Web
> Standards.
It's only too bad most web site designers are apparently not among them.
We wouldn't actually want most of the web to be easy to use, would we?
> Just take the first two "biggest mistakes":
> 1. Legebility (fixed font sizes, non-standard fonts)
> Sounds familiar? Of course - it's the kind of stuff Web Standards and
> Usability people love chit-chatting about all day long (including us here on
> the WSG list).
Wouldn't be much to discuss if it wasn't a problem, would it?
> But does it mean they are really the two biggest Usability
> problems around?
Probably. It you can't read it, nothing else matters. Readability is the
most basic element of usability.
> I don't think so. Go onto the street and ask anybody who's
> not absolutely fanatic with Usability or Web Standards what they find is the
> biggest Usability problem. Will they answer "Oooh, I am really annoyed that
> I cannot change the font-sizes in my Internet Explorer browser because the
> evil programmer has set it to a fixed font-size"? No, of course they won't
> say that.
Actually what they say is "why do most sites make the text so small"?
Remember, "most users don't know they can change the text size". Web
designers repeat it all the time, so it must be true.
> Because it's not the biggest Usability issue in the world, even
> though Usability and Web Standards discussions might make you think that.
If it's not the biggest, it's certainly right near the top. It you can't
read it, nothing else matters.
> I am not saying these problems don't exist - of course they do. But I can
> guarantee you the public (our real users) would vote completely different on
Find or take an unbiased, statistically valid, general poll population,
and make good on your guarantee.
> what bugs them about website usability than what subscribers to Jakob
> Nielsen newsletter do.
I live in the real world. People I work with complaining about too small
text outnumber those complaining about too big text at least 100:1. I
can't actually remember if I've ever heard anyone other than a web
designer or app developer complain about too big web page text.
At least when the worst designers could throw was <font size=1> most
users had some likelihood to see, as <font> is relative to the defaults.
Since CSS, user defaults could be totally disregarded with 'body p
{font-size: 11px}', and user power was diminished. This modern version
ubiquity of too small text on the web is the reason why modern browser
makers have given surfers zoom, minimum font size, and stylesheet
disabling to use as defenses.
--
"Be quick to listen, slow to speak." James 1:19 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/
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