Category — Prototyping Software

In this two part blog post I shall look at findability and the crucial role it plays in the interface design of websites. In part 1 of the blog I shall explain what findability is and what the main issues are affecting findability on a website.

What is findability?

Findability, in computer science, refers to a user’s ability to identify and then navigate the interface designs of websites or web-apps. It encompasses aspects of information architecture, user interface design, accessibility and search engine optimization. The term findability is credited to Peter Morville who remarked that “findability precedes usability. In the alphabet and on the Web. You can’t use what you can’t find.” In this vein findability is two-pronged, on one hand dealing with users finding a website. On the other hand it deals with how users find things that they are looking for, such as the help section or contact details etc., on a given website. According to Neilson Online currently there are more than 1,733,993,741 internet users generating and interacting with vast streams of data. Findability helps ensure your website doesn’t get lost in the mix and, when found, not to be deserted by frustrated users who in all likelihood won’t return, barring a thorough reworking of the interface design.
If you are developing a website with a new user interface and are interested in optimizing your website’s ability to be located by prospective users on the internet, then it is important to infuse your design process with adequate research about the above mentioned topics.

Issues affecting findability on a website
Findability concerns itself with the effort to make a user interface design easily navigable or usable and to ensure that the interface design process is fully integrated and effective. Key to findability is the organization and representation of a user interface design.  This refers to among others, the layout, the use of breadcrumbs and local navigation. Are users able to easily navigate a website and find the services they were looking for? If they found themselves in the middle of a website (which happens often as people share direct links) would they be able to figure out where in the hierarchy they were?  These issues can easily be revolved by adhering to web standards and through iterative usability testing of wireframe prototypes created with the use of wireframe tools such as pidoco. Another important issue affecting findability is the qualities of your web-site’s content and how it is geared towards search engine optimization.

Several weeks ago Google updated their Google Images page interface design to move from a text-based to a more image based user interface.  The most noticeable changes include search image results that are assembled in a larger, more mosaic style pattern.  Google vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer also maintains that “stripping [the interface down] and highlighting the image” will be simultaneously enticing and beneficial for users.  The idea is that users will have visually visceral and instantaneous access to the products that they seek.

Further changes to the Images interface include the way Google allows users to view selected pictures. Users can now click on the desired image and it will be blown up with the website of origin shown as faded in the background.  Google will also be phasing out text ads and replacing them with image ads to further improve the usability and clarity of its interface design.

I recently came across an interesting gaming platform that I thought I’d share. It seems appropriate since there were several things that I noticed which stood out with regard to its interface design. Well, you’ll see for yourself if you read further.

OnLive is a new service that seeks to turn the gaming world upside down with a decidedly disruptive Web 2.0 approach. Thus far video games have been largely an affair of hardware, localized at that. You (which usually meant mum or dad) would buy a game console or a PC with the best possible graphics card etc… Once that business was out of the way all that was left was to buy the games. This meant buying a piece of plastic with data on it. With the advent of ubiquitous internet, downloading games directly to your local hard drive became possible through services such as Steam. However one needed compatible hardware to be able to run the software. OnLive’s premise is to harness the cloud and a web-browser for gaming. The games run on servers in a remote data center and the audiovisual output is streamed to your computer in exchange for your controller inputs. This means that as long as you have a good internet connection, the hardware settings of your computer do not matter. All very nice so far.

The latest iteration of Apple’s Safari web-browser sees the Cupertino based company renew its arsenal in the fiercely competitive browser wars. According to Netmarketshare Internet Explorer still leads the pack with 62.1% followed by Firefox (24.4%), Chrome (5.22%) and Safari (4.53%). The numbers clearly show that Safari has a lot of ground to catch up in the popularity stakes (especially considering it was around before Chrome). Although I suspect that a significant number of users of Internet Explorer use it simply because it came with their computer and do not see the need to for any other browser or use it due to company policy, this does not change any of the facts about this well-known browser with its familiar interface design, and Internet Explorer 6 on its own is still accounts for 17.17% of market share!

Competing in this setting, the new Safari boasts some great interface design features that increase the usability of the browser considerably. Safari borrows heavily from iTunes’ interface design even going as far as replicating Cover Flow and thus allowing users to view bookmarks and history visually as they would a photo album or album covers. Top Sites allows users to see their most visited websites at a glance in a cinematic interface design showing previews of the sites. These features of Safari’s new interface design lead to great usability. A photo preview of a website is recognised much more intuitively and faster than a list of URLs. Safari also scores usability points for its Full History Search which allows users to search for webpages using words or phrases from a website they visited, rendering it obsolete to remember complex URLs.

WizeHive, an online collaboration tool that lets users share files, manage projects and track activity with others in secure, private workspaces recently revamped its interface design along with adding further functionality. A great opportunity to look at some interface design questions. WizeHive allows users to track multiple people and projects through its project management system. Users can create workspaces tailored to a specific client for the sharing of key business data, notes, documents and tasks. In addition, WizeHive helps to automate business processes, such as job applications or contests, through its WizeApps.

What has changed in the interface design?

Perhaps the most notable change to WizeHive’s interface design is that the new interface design is now much more streamlined, thus saving users time when they work with WizeHive, which may potentially bring down costs.  As before the interface design displays recent activity within an activity stream like Twitter, but now up to five workspaces can be added to clickable tabs at the top of the screen for easy access in addition to a ‘More Workspaces’ tab to access other workspaces that are not displayed by an individual tab within the interface design. There are further little improvements that all seem to add to the usability and clarity of the program.

The Guardian, a major British national daily newspaper, has long received critical acclaim for its website which is also incidentally one of the most visited English-language news websites in the world. This success may not least be due to the influence of a superior interface design employed by the creators of the website, which greatly enhances usability. The website’s interface design is very efficient in layout and design allowing users to easily delve into the full gamut of news on offer along with clearly defined clickable breadcrumbs, helping users navigate easily to further subsections of the website.

What decisions led to this type of interface design?

An independent programmer name Phil Gyford has now offered users a unique streamlined way to enjoy the Guardian. Using the Guardian’s Content API he thought to tap into the need to consume news with the ease of a newspaper. No matter how well designed a newspaper’s interface design on its website may be, they all require users to actively navigate through separate sections. According to his personal blog, Phil Gyford “wanted something with reduced friction. There should be as few difficult decisions as possible, nothing harder than ‘shall I turn the page?’. I wanted to avoid having to make a big decision before reading an article. It should be as quick and effortless as possible, as close to how easy it is to start reading an article in a newspaper”. This statement speaks volumes to the importance of the ease of use with which end users (in this case the readers of the digital paper) can understand, utilize and navigate an interface design. With usability being one of the most noticeable determinants of quality online, its impact can not be overestimated, especially when addressing such a diverse audience as the Guardian does.

In this blog post, inspired by a TheNextWeb blog entry,  I shall talk about a few things interface designers and web developers should consider when embarking on creating a new app, regardless of the platform. The 2005 animated film ‘Robots’ featured the following catchphrase “see a need, fill a need” in essence as a motif. Market research is crucial. If you have an idea you want to develop look around and see what programs or websites are already out there catering to that market or segment. Positioning your website or software application to cater to a previously unmet market demand is a great place to start. If you happen to be developing an alternative to already established (and popular) players in a market you have to ask yourself: How am I going to do this better? What unique selling point(s) will my product have over my rivals’ products? A case in point is webmail, which is a very crowded and competitive marketplace. If you want to start a new webmail service, for example, what features are going to make users want to use your service rather than, say, Gmail or Yahoo. But features are not the entire story.

Although such high numbers of users are threatening to pull the plug on their Facebook memberships, in all likelihood, the threats will remain threats. While it is true that people are furious that their private information is not being properly cared for, Facebook users will still have a hard time leaving the site because of all the social networking benefits. Facebook has become one of the main arteries in the social life of millions of people. It is a way to instantly and easily share life with all family, friends, coworkers etc. Pictures, videos, messages, chatting, fan clubs—Facebook is an outlet that allows users to participate in and share a diversity of interests. In reality, it is not so easy for a user to click the ‘delete account’ button. Perhaps Facebook should think about hiding this option in its interface design.

The poll numbers are also telling in terms of the potential mass user exodus. 60% of users only threaten to leave while 16% have actually left. This illustrates the fact that most people who are angry enough to leave have probably left already. This is not to say that people aren’t really mad—many, in fact, are livid. But the anger boiling in the blood of the 60% of users threatening to leave Facebook has actually led to a more positive Facebook evolution: in the past few weeks, Facebook has begun implementing changes to its security feature options in addition to simplifying its interface design. While the social networking site has a long way to go in terms of re-building client trust and respecting client privacy, the organization has proven that it is keen to take user experience feedback into account, even when it is apocalyptically critical. Because Facebook has allowed itself to succumb to self-reflexivity, their survival outlook remains good. For now.

The Facebook privacy features controversy has left many users wondering whether it is worth continuing their relationship with the social networking site. According to a recent poll conducted by the IT security firm Sophos, nearly two thirds of Facebook users are considering leaving the site all together, with 30% of respondents saying that it is highly likely they will quit Facebook over privacy concerns and an additional 30% of respondents regarding this a possibility.

In addition to the 60% of potential Facebook defectors, 16% of users claim that they already have logged out permanently so to speak. It is truly astounding that in just a few short months approximately 75% of the social networking hegemon’s users are dissatisfied enough to seriously consider leaving the site for good if they have not already done so. According to Sophos’ senior techonology consultant, Graham Cluely, „the majority of people we polled are fed up with the lack of control that Facebook gives them over their own data.“ Users find Facebook’s privacy features interface design convoluted and confusing. Confusion unavoidably leads to frustration and, as many interface designers know, frustration often leads to abandonment.

I wrote this blog post inspired by an article by Boris on TheNextWeb in which the author pronounced “The death of the website” after paraphrasing Adam Richardson’s “the death of the browser” pronouncement. Both pronouncements are arguably astute but I wanted to add further comment regarding what they mean for interface design.

Things, as the old adage goes, come and go in cycles. The same goes for the world of software applications. Before the World Wide Web took off, software on PCs mostly got there by way of a native software application.  You had specific programs on floppy disks and you’d install the ones you need. One type of application, the web-browser, would prove to be the single-most versatile app of all. Whereas native apps tended to fulfil a clearly defined task such as desktop publishing, email, or spreadsheets even, the web browser would rise to be a swiss knife of sorts.