Eliminate the Possibility of Questions
"I should be able to 'get it'- what it is and how to use it- without expending any effort thinking about it" (Krug 11).
This is exactly what we did Friday when we critiqued our peers' websites. We gaver our opinions on whether the site was easy or if we understood the topic without using to much effort thinking about it. We need to be aware that a person of average (or even below average) ability and experience will visit our sites. As website creators, we need to make sure that something works not just okay or good, but WELL so that our visitors will not get frustrated.
"If something requires a large investment of time-or looks like it will- it's less likely to be used" (Krug 6).
Don't we do this when we have to read a book whether it's instructional, like this one, or for academia. The book is 300 or more pages and we dread reading it. Reading this book will require a huge amount of time. We will most likely store it in a book shelf or in a desk and forget about. We want to make sure we do this with our sites. Like some of our peers' websites, some included lengthy paragraphs. These long paragraphs are most likely not going to be read because that means the reader will have to invest time. That is why we are told to use bulleted lists that contain the most helpful and useful information.
"When you're creating a site, your job is to get rid of the question marks" (Krug 13).
Keep the site self-evident so that the pages are effective.
Like Kilian explained, we don't read pages; we scan them. As website visitors, we are normally in a hurry and we don't want to read EVERYTHING. This is the basic mindset of a web surfer. So we need to address these needs.
A main idea that is examined in both Krug and Kilian's books is the idea of visual hierarchy.
We must make sure that the most important items are higher on the page. This will help the reader understand the main topic or idea of the site.
Krug explains that we need to make it obvious what's clickable (37). This was an issue on the site that Jackie and I created. Many of our peers said that the pictures linking back to the homepage wasn't obvious. So we made sure that we fixed that problem. We don't want visitors questioning our site.
I was considering saying something about the pictures, but I figured I'd wait and see whether your classmates picked up on it. I'm glad you were able to make the connection. You're heading into the 2nd half of the course with a great mindeset, ready to learn from the user-testing experience. Good work, Denamarie.
we look at our own work through rose-colored lenses. What works for us may not work for everyone else. People think differently, and i tend to make things difficult for myself and others due to my over-achieving tendencies. In pumping my site (and blogs) full of information, I tend to forget that most people aren't professor-like and don't sit down and read epics pages of prose. Keep it short, but informative. Visitors won't stay long, no matter what you do. So make their stay worthwhile