Principle #9 - Usability on par with books
by Robbie, February 4, 2006
One of the advantages of books is that they are dirt simple to use. We have to strive for this same level of simplicity and usability online.
Many content sites today are filled with obtrusive ads, some of which are positioned in such a way to trick users into clicking them. This is no way to establish a loyal customer base. When it comes to developing user interfaces for content sites, the requirements of users should come first and advertisers should come last. Ads should be unobtrusive and context sensitive. In an ideal world, ads should enhance the user experience, but at a minimum they should not detract from it.
Another common mistake made by a lot of content sites is overloading the user. Some sites are so filled with links, panes, frames, sections, tabs, menus, and boxes that it is hard to find the content of interest. Avoid clutter at all cost. When a site begins to get cluttered, figure out another way to organize the information or move the content to a new, more targeted site.
[…] I’ve gone through most of the book and while there is some pretty good material (which is especially relevant to my current venture), the UI could use a lot of improvement. In Principle #9 of the Internet Publishing Manifesto, I said it is impertative that online content needs to be as easy to use as a book. Bruce’s online book definitely doesn’t meet this criterion. The font is a decent size, but there are only Next and Previous links to navigate between pages. It isn’t very easy to skip through pages I’m not interested in. Also, the table of contents isn’t very detailed so again it isn’t easy to find specific information of interest. […]
Publishing Hacks » Ad-Supported Online Book from Harper-Collins February 14th, 2006