Three-click rule defunct, says Nielsen Norman usability group
The rule that Internet veterans have sworn by for years, that a website should be designed so that a user finds their content within three clicks is not a valid principle, Hoa Loranger told the audience at the NNG usability workshop in Amsterdam.
The workshop was led by Jakob Nielsen, who has developed the most widely used set of rules (“heuristics”) in website usability, and who is principle at the NNG group.
Ms Loranger told the audience that the leading usability company often gets asked if the three-click rule still applies.
The number of clicks is not important, Loranger explained, as long as the content flow makes sense and is logical, leading the users in a way that they understand and expect to the information that they need.
We absolutely need to understand from an information architecture perspective what the user’s requirements are, and build the flow to address them, she added. If we do that properly the number of clicks is no longer that important.
It is probably worth noting that the three-click rule has been increasingly questioned by design and usability experts, but it is still very prevalent with internet executives and web departments. A statement of this sort coming from NNG is therefore another weighty view taking us closer to its abolition.
Finding the Persona Non Grata (Web Design and Usability)
Persona Non Grata - In the context of website usability - a term I use to describe users I do not want on a website.
In the course of a web design (or redesign) project, you will often encounter a process by which the design or usability company create personas (or personae).
A persona is a fictitious archetypal user, built to represent the users of a website: their needs, drivers and characteristics - to help you understand who you are building for. Put simply it is a member of your target audience, which you create to help the team understand who they are designing for.
In a project I've been working on recently, I came across a need that I haven't had before: to define not just personas, but also a persona non grata. I call it that because in my mind it represents the people you do not want on your site, but of whom you are getting plenty.
Owners of most websites don't mind if they get lots of irrelevant users. Their traffic is up, management is happy, and the focus is often on conversion rates and increasing the site's relevance to the people that matter. It follows that the models and personas they use relate to the people they want, rather than those they don't.
But if, for example, your site is very niche, and you get a lot of misguided traffic that puts a burden on your customer support team, or on your bandwidth, you sometimes need to define who these misguided users are, and how you can channel them elsewhere. One part of the solution would be to design the site well for its desired users, but that may not be enough. You may find that the only way to fend off the unwanted traffic is to use a similar process to the persona process - but one that defines the personae non gratae and figures out ways to stop them from misunderstanding your site, or deflecting and redirecting them elsewhere.
More methodology to follow. I wanted to get the definition and explanation out of the way first.
Recommended Usability Companies in the UK
As part of a project I am working on at the moment, I was looking for a usability company to provide me with support, working alongside a design partner. I needed usability design support for navigation components, usability testing for wireframe stages and usability testing for prototypes.
I posted the question on several forums, and I thought it would be worth summarising the responses I got, for future reference. I provide usability consultancy myself, but to meet project timelines it sometimes makes sense to get someone in to do this piece, and of course to tackle the overheads of usability testing and mouse and eye-tracking.
I’m ordering the list with usability companies recommended by people I know at the top, followed by the rest.
UK Usability Companies Recommended by People I Know
1. Flow Interactive
In their own words: Flow specialises in user-centred design, customer experience strategy, user research and usability testing. We help organisations gain a competitive advantage by delivering products and services that are useful, delightful and easy to use… Results that support design and strategy: Collecting information is only half the process. We deliver actionable design and strategy recommendations based on our findings. We can go on to deliver design concepts or product strategy roadmaps… We work with organisations of all sizes, including the BBC, Microsoft, Moo Print and Skype.
2. Bunny Foot
In their own words: We help you to optimise the way you communicate with your customers... to make sure they do more of what you want. We are psychologists & human-computer interface experts - we cover Web, software, mobiles, iTV, print, games - we now do an increasing amount of advertising work too… Founded in 1999, in the early days of usability, we were the first consultancy to offer professional accessibility services and the first to offer eyetracking as standard. We still concentrate on our core competence of user centred design and usability, but now also offer specialist eyetracking services to ad agencies and for market research.We have offices in Oxford, Edinburgh and London [contacts and directions] - we feel it is important to have nationwide reach and not be biased towards London… We work with leading names from both the public and private sectors - recently Microsoft, BOC, Mini, BA, Yell, McAfee, PowerGen, DWP, COI, NHS, TSO, VisitLondon...
3. Experience Solutions
In their own words: Our customer experience research and consultancy services help you improve your products and services. Your customers want to reach their goals quickly and easily, that's where we come in. With our help, you'll make their experience seamless and enjoyable so they'll come back for more and bring their friends, resulting in a bigger market share… Our directors, Ali Carmichael and Damian Rees have 18 years experience in delivering fantastic customer experiences for major UK clients, including Marks and Spencer, Argos, BBC, RNLI, and Motorola. They formed the company over a few Drams in the seaside town of Bournemouth, on the south coast of the UK.
Usability Companies Recommended by Others
4. Etre
In their own words: We design, manage and deliver profitable user experiences. We're different from other companies you've worked with. Here's why: We're specialists not generalists Unlike consultancies, agencies and other "one-stop shops", we focus on a few things and do them extremely well. In those areas, we've gained deep experience and developed proven solutions that we can use to maximise the return on your web project… Our consultants have worked on projects for Eurostar, Transport for London, Microsoft, HSBC, American Express, Vodafone, Muller Dairies, Deutsche Bank, The Law Society of England and Wales
5. User Vision
In their own words: User Vision provides services throughout the UK and Europe and was established in 2000. We are a consultancy dedicated to improving the user experience of your website, software or product. We offer a wide range of services including consulting, testing, reviewing, evaluation and training to help clients produce better products that customers find easier to use. We take a straightforward, practical approach to user needs analysis, problem solving and usability testing, leading to effective design solutions. Whether we become involved at the design stage, or after a system has been in use for some time, we never lose sight of the user’s needs. Have worked with the likes of BBC, Out-law, HSBC, Dell, Ikea and Emirates Airlines.
6. User Focus
In their own words: Userfocus is a consultancy and training company that helps organisations reduce costs and increase profits by helping create great customer experiences. Our clients are typically blue-chip organisations like Orange, RBS and Hewlett-Packard who want help improving the usability of their web site, intranet or handheld gadget. Unlike competitor companies, our consultants are experimental psychologists, which means we provide rigorous insights into audience behaviour.
7. Webcredible
In their own words: Based in London, UK, Webcredible offers a range of usability & accessibility services for websites, intranets, mobile devices & applications. We research, design & build interfaces to support user requirements & business goals. Our user research services will help you precisely identify the needs of your users and show you how to improve your website, intranet or application. Our user-centered design process will structure and plan out an information architecture for you, optimised around users achieving your goals. Have worked with the likes of: Admiral Insurance, T-mobile, WHO, Yamaha, Lambeth Council.
It is worth noting that my requirement for this project was a local usability consultancy in the UK, so off-shoring was off the menu this time – although I do recognise that in some instances off-shoring can work quite well for this sort of thing. I also ruled out on this occasion agencies for whom usability was not the mainstay of their work (for example, some very good market research agencies also run usability testing – but I was looking for those purely in the business of website usability).
Finally – for those companies not recommended by people I know, I checked out their own corporate websites first. If their site doesn’t display excellent usability principles in action, then I won’t mention them here. You’d be amazed at how people try to sell you usability expertise but their own site is a mess: things that look like links aren’t clickable, or the information is so badly organised, you wonder what they’re doing in this space.
Oh, and for some of the ones who didn't make the list: just because you are a usability company... It doesn't mean your site has to be a boring pile of monotone ASCII. Know what I’m saying?
BidBoogie UK Launch – Should I Trust You?
I've been asked by Bid Boogie's PR to review their new UK site. I got some free credits and a promise that I won't have to be nice ("We would love to hear your feedback and we appreciate that you need to be impartial.").
Now here's my problem: I think that Bid Boogie are a legitimate company, but I couldn't really verify it, and some of the activity around its promotion does it no favours at all.
As you will see from the rest of this post, my main issue is one of trust. When a service breaks into a new market, it needs to give you confidence that it is legit. With BidBoogie, a trawl on their site and the web brought up the following question marks:
1. I found several spam messages promoting the new service on Internet forums, blogs and sites, including this one (screenshot) on MoneySavingExpert.com (now removed as spam), which is clearly planted (a PS3 doesn't actually feature on the list of already sold items on BidBoogie). A user similarly spammed PriceRunner here (screenshot here). I'm not suggesting necessarily that BidBoogie themselves are behind it, but it doesn't help their brand, and they need to be aware that Imitating a costomer to promote your business is now illegal in the UK, and since May 08 is a criminal offence. If BidBoogie are hoping to instil confidence in their legitimacy, they need to ensure that whoever is doing this, stops. Immediately. And they need to distance themselves from spam.
2. The address provided for Bid Boogie in the UK is that of a virtual office and the phone number a virtual number (0750). It's probably just a temporary thing, but it isn't good for consumer confidence.
3. I know you can't help it, but I found it a little eerie that the first four names of the company's contacts are, in order of appearance: Miko, Miikka, Mikko and another Mikko, respectively. To an Anglo-trained ear this may seem a bit odd.
4. The domain Bidboogie.co.uk is registered to a company called "Effective Investments S.L", in Hotel del golf, Malaga. Again, this does not inspire confidence. I would not pay any money to a company where the holding structure is not clear, and the address for redress is somewhat suspect.
So, BidBoogie, if you are indeed legit, the above is the first thing you need to sort out. In fact, there's a trust issue built into the bid process as well, but I'll cover that a little further down the page.
Further observations about BidBoogie.co.uk:
1. Your registration process needs a good usability review. It's not clear which fields are compulsory and which aren't, the activation email doesn't send an activation address (worse still, the activation code is glued to the previous word in a way that will lose you quite a few users). When I consult to companies on usability, I often notice that the registration process is overlooked, as are privacy and data protection elements (there are some legal risks here too). You need to ensure you get this one right, especially as you are a transactional site.
2. A new website usually loses me if I don't understand what it's there to do within 10 seconds. The homepage of BidBoogie UK was confusing. 'How does it work?' I asked myself. A one liner that tells you in a nutshell has to be integrated into this page.
3. Determined to understand BidBoogie, I was looking for a caption explaining the bid system, but couldn't find one. Eventually I noticed a button called 'Auction Concept' at the top. This doesn't immediately tell an English speaker what's behind it, but I clicked it to see if it holds the answer. On that page I did finally find a paragraph that is supposed to explain the concept, written in the most awkward language:
"Next to the products available for bidding there is a clock, which shows how much time has passed since the last bid. When the set time after the last bid has passed, the auction closes and the person who holds the highest bid wins. So, when the time on the clock is up, the auction closes. There is no other bidding time for the product, and the auction closes when no one has raised your bid within the given time, e.g. five minutes. Now it's time to be smart and bid on fantastic quality products. Placing a bid by sending a text message costs £1.50."
So let's recap:
- When the clock shows the bid time is over, the auction closes.
- When the time is up the auction closes.
- There is no other bidding time for the product (when the time is up)
- There is no more bidding time when the auction closes.
So what exactly happens when the time is up? Oh yes, the auction closes. Doh!
It was lucky that there’s an explanatory graphic there – which does a much better job, although it too needs some work.
TRYING IT OUT
I went to bid on an Apple Macbook Air to try out my free credits. There are only a few products on the site at the moment, I assume because it is in pre-launch. The Macbook was selling for £71.19, and the idea was that if the clock reaches zero before anyone else bids, the Macbook Air is mine for this ridiculous price, unless someone else bids, in which case the clock is reset:
Of course I didn't win. In fact, the auction has been live for just under six days now, and, if the system, is to be believed, then someone has been placing a bid at least once a minute during the site’s opening hours of 7am to 10pm. This is possible because BidBoogie allows you to place automatic bids, and if you buy a package of 100 bids, it would continue to bid for you during bidding hours.
Once again, the one element that really needs improving on your site is the trust and transparency factor. When I bid on the MacBook air, and then realised that I can't see who else is bidding and whether or not they are a legit user, it naturally made me ask: is it a real user, or is it just BidBoogie inflating bid prices? I can't see the history of bids on a product, I can't see who's bidding, and every bid costs me money so, as a user, I am not likely to pay cash for something I'm not really sure works as advertised.
My gut instinct as a consumer says that if something is too good to be true, it usually is. Is it likely that I'll be able to buy a MacBook Air from BidBoogie for £71? Probably not. How high does it need to go for BidBoogie to make a profit? Should I trust these guys? I need some more assurances, which I don’t get from the current site.
The UK audience is by nature sceptical, so the BidBoogie team needs to think hard about how to build trust with us. At the moment, there isn't anything to tell me I can trust you.
I’ll be happy to review my opinion in future if things change.