Situate Follow-Ups in Context
"Usability is often enhanced when people can find follow-up transactions on the page where they conducted their first transaction. Conversely, usability is reduced if the original page contains no hint of what people might need to do at a later stage.
Some examples:
We recently tested an intranet's e-learning area as part of our new round of intranet usability research. (The study is in progress; we'll report the results in the new advanced intranet usability tutorial at the Usability Week 2005 conferences in New York, Stockholm, London, and San Francisco.) One of the e-learning area tasks was for users to cancel their scheduled participation in a certain course. Rather than use the intranet's registration management feature, almost all users went straight to the course page where they'd originally signed up. Unfortunately, this page offered no link for withdrawing from the course.
In e-commerce usability, users typically look for product-related items on the main product's page. To buy ink for a specific fountain pen, for example, most people go to the page that sells that pen and hope it lists (or links to) compatible refill cartridges. People almost never go immediately to a special 'supplies' or 'support' area, though many websites keep related products there to mirror the company's organization. Even if you have an independent support organization, you should link to its offerings from the main page of each supported product.
On Amazon.com, when people visit the page for a book they've already ordered, there's a prominent box at the top of the page that notes the order and offers an easy link to track it.
As these examples show, users typically return to a previous location to follow-up on related actions. Familiar places are easy to find and create less me"
Some examples:
We recently tested an intranet's e-learning area as part of our new round of intranet usability research. (The study is in progress; we'll report the results in the new advanced intranet usability tutorial at the Usability Week 2005 conferences in New York, Stockholm, London, and San Francisco.) One of the e-learning area tasks was for users to cancel their scheduled participation in a certain course. Rather than use the intranet's registration management feature, almost all users went straight to the course page where they'd originally signed up. Unfortunately, this page offered no link for withdrawing from the course.
In e-commerce usability, users typically look for product-related items on the main product's page. To buy ink for a specific fountain pen, for example, most people go to the page that sells that pen and hope it lists (or links to) compatible refill cartridges. People almost never go immediately to a special 'supplies' or 'support' area, though many websites keep related products there to mirror the company's organization. Even if you have an independent support organization, you should link to its offerings from the main page of each supported product.
On Amazon.com, when people visit the page for a book they've already ordered, there's a prominent box at the top of the page that notes the order and offers an easy link to track it.
As these examples show, users typically return to a previous location to follow-up on related actions. Familiar places are easy to find and create less me"
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home