When teaching journalists, I have noticed that they often seem to prefer learning from the mistakes of others, rather than from shining examples of perfection. It’s especially true when it comes to Web design and navigation. I run sessions called “wrecking balls” where we tear apart sites — and the students love them. Until it’s their turn to have their work hit by the wrecking ball, of course.
Last year, I received a lot of good feedback when I wrote about problems with what is called “usability” in the business. Below are some updated thoughts. But first, let me borrow from my January 2004 column:
I rarely write about Web design issues in this column since our mandate is to write about ways to use the Internet as a reporting tool (and besides, the Poynter Design/Graphics folks and Jon Dube’s Cyberjournalist.net have that well covered). But I am making an exception in this case because I think, increasingly, how sites are designed can affect how good they are for journalists to use.Nielsen has compiled two other good pieces on Web design errors and they are worth a look: Most hated advertising techniques and Top ten mistakes of Web design. In another article, Durability of Usability Guidelines, he concludes that “about 90 percent of usability guidelines from 1986 are still valid, though several guidelines are less important because they relate to design elements that are rarely used today.”
When it comes to Web site usability, the leading authority in the world is Jakob Nielsen, whose Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., has influenced tens of thousands of site designers. Nielsen’s useit.com is a must-visit site for anyone in the Web business and I think more non-techie journalists should know about it.
Another site that gets right to the point is Vincent Flanders’ WebPagesThatSuck.com (“showing sucky design since 1996”) and his daily wrecking ball, Daily Sucker. He has compiled the lessons of last year in The Biggest Web Design Mistakes of 2004, written with his unique style. An excerpt: “Some mistakes aren’t actually design mistakes in the classical sense — ugly graphics, bad navigation, etc. — but serious big picture problems like our Number One Mistake of the Year: Believing people care about you and your Web site.”
You can see the progress in Web design by checking out Nielsen’s previous lists:
- Web design mistakes (1996)
- Web design mistakes (1999)
- Good deeds in Web design (1999)
- Top homepage usability guidelines (2002)
- Web design mistakes (2002)
- Top Ten Web Design Mistakes (2003)
- Most violated homepage guidelines (2003)
You can subscribe to Nielsen’s bi-weekly column on usability, Alertbox, at no cost here.
Your turn: send me sites you like at poynter@sree.net.
A WORKSHOP FOR YOU: Info about my Columbia weekend workshop on building a personal website (April 2 & 3, 2005)
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