Comments on: Help Your Viewers Help Themselves: Usability Tips

By: Randall McCarley

Randall McCarley — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:08:06 +0000

Thanks for the opportunity here Steven – it was fun!

Yuri, Thanks for the feedback. I suspect I could have wrote 200 pages with tips to make each aspect of a website more usable and still been 500 pages short! I hope these concepts give people enough information so the next time they look at their sites they think “…oh. Got it” From there they can make changes and look up specifics as needed. I don’t think general usability tips do much good other than whatever the font size is you think you need, make it 2 points bigger!

By: Yuri

Yuri — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 02:20:21 +0000

I think it would be better, if you pointed out the simple things to improve usability, such as make text readable, use the words visitors use and stuff. Somehow it doesn't feel easy to go from this post to practice. Other than that, great post, Rand.

By: Steven Bradley

Steven Bradley — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 01:45:42 +0000

Thanks for the post Randall. I’m a big fan of Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” when it comes to usability. I realize it’s the usability book for non usability experts, but I’ve always felt if you can at least follow what’s in the book you’ve created a pretty usable site. I haven’t read Tom Peter’s yet, but I’ve added him to my reading list.

I really like the idea of design enhancing content and not distracting from it. I think too many people think good design is supposed to stand out when in truth the best designs are the ones that stay out of the way and draw little attention to the design.