B2B Usability

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for June 1 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/b2b.html
	
Summary:
User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially
lower usability than mainstream consumer sites. If they want to convert
more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and
make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.

------------

Usability Week 2006 conference

  > San Francisco, June 19-24
  > Sydney, July 16-21

In-depth training:
  > 3-day Intensive Camp: Usability in Practice
  > 3-day Immersion: Tog on Interaction Design

Specialized tutorials:
  > Eyetracking Web Usability
  > Fundamental Guidelines for Web Usability
  > B2B Websites
  > Presenting Company Information on Corporate Websites
  > Wish Lists and Gift-Giving in E-Commerce
  > Writing for the Web (two days)
  > E-Mail Newsletter Usability
  > Intranet Usability (two days)

More info and full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

------------

Steve Hurd from the Open University collected data from 6,000 elementary
schools in the U.K. and found that:

   * every £100 spent on BOOKS raise students' grades by 1.5%
   * every £100 spent on COMPUTERS raise students' grades by 0.7%

Books are twice as good as computers for cost-effectively improving
primary-school education.

This doesn't surprise me. Computers and online information are not that
great for teaching fundamental knowledge. It's usually better to use a
linear approach where students are taken through an argument in the order
determined by the author. Having to read a textbook with chapters that
build on each other is often the way to learn.

This doesn't mean that computers are useless or damaging for learners.
They are great for writing papers and for looking up isolated facts once
you have acquired the conceptual framework to understand the fragmented
information you will find on the Web. Computers also support simulations,
what-if analyses, and many other exercises that are often great
supplements to textbooks.

The Web is best for short-form works, such as polemics, news, and
announcements. To truly learn a new topic often requires immersion and
sustained reading of hundreds of pages, both of which are better supported
by the linear and integrated format of the book.

More info:
   > http://www.tes.co.uk/2233918

------------

At our conference in London last week, I was pleased to see substantial
growth in the number of participants from Eastern Europe. For several
years, we have had Russians at every conference, but this year Russia only
had the second-largest of the Eastern European delegations: there were
three times as many people from Poland. We also had a few participants
from Hungary and Latvia.

Usability is definitely spreading in Eastern Europe. It will be a few more
years before we can afford to bring the conference to Warsaw, but watch
the Poles - they are on the upswing.

------------