Web Site Usability Information (was book comments?)

[Karl M. Bunday]

Elizabeth Badeaux wrote:

> Please forgive the cross-posting as I'm sure some of you
> are subscribed to both web4lib and nettrain, but I wanted to be able
to get
> as much feedback as possible.

I've been a lurker on the WEB4LIB list for a while, and have been
intimidated about posting a message because of the high caliber of
professional comments here, but here goes. (I learned of the existence
of this list from the searchenginewatch.com webmasters directory index
page.) What comes below is suggestions I have for resources on
building better Web sites, based on my experience as a Web master and
Web reader since early 1995.

[Names of two books deleted.]

> I'd love to hear comments from any of you regarding any
> experiences you have had using these two sources. Were they helpful?
practical? easy to
> understand for a non-advanced user?

My number-one recommendation for all Web masters, advice that many Web
masters of the best sites already take, is to pickle yourself in the
specific suggestions found on Jakob Neilsen's useit.com site,

http://www.useit.com

and especially the content of nearly all of his Alertbox biweekly
columns on Web usability issues. Neilsen has done more research, more
thoroughly and for longer, than almost anyone else about Web usability
issues. In particular, Neilsen has a familiarity with hypertext and
hypermedia design principles and usability testing that goes back a
long time before there was such a thing as the World Wide Web. His
Alertbox columns

"Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design"

and

"Top 10 New Mistakes in Web Design"

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html


are priceless, as is most all the rest of the free advice on this
site.

Neilsen's useit.com site has a good list of links, but Neilsen
recommends rather than tries to duplicate the superb usability link
list kept at the Usable Web,

http://www.usableweb.com

which will lead you to enormous amounts of too-little-known
information on making Web sites more usable.

For the daring Web master who wants constructive cricism of that Web
master's own site, there is a Please Critique My Site! topic on the
discussion boards maintained by "Web Pages That Suck,"

http://webpagesthatsuck.com

which despite the somewhat crude title is a serious resource with much
sound advice about how to make a site usable. I obtained some help in
updating my own Web site by visiting the Web Pages That Suck
discussion board.

I have found many violations of basic usability principles as I
research my personal subject-matter interests on the Web. Most of
those usability violations are perpetrated by hobbyist sites rather
than professional sites maintained by persons whose occupational
duties include Web mastering. My comments on the most exasperating of
those violations of of usability principles may be a helpful resource
for librarians looking for advice, not for themselves, but for patrons
who are putting together hobby sites. My page can be found at

http://learninfreedom.org/technical_notes.html

(There is an underscore character in the filename, which I acknowledge
is itself a usability issue.)

I have greatly appreciated the Public Library Web Site Guidelines
links posted by Shelley Voie. Those are an important indirect guide to
Web site design, which more sites ought to follow. They confirmed
Neilsen's advice on several points as I was recently updating my own
site.


Karl M. Bunday  "pray for us" 2 Thessalonians 3:1
P.O. Box 674, Panchiao 220, TAIWAN
http://learninfreedom.org