Banner Blindness, Old and New Findings

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for August 20 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/banner-blindness.html
		
Summary:
Users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the four
design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and
reduces the value of advertising networks.
			
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User Experience 2007 conference

  > Barcelona, November 4-9
  > Las Vegas, December 2-7

31 full-day tutorials
2 keynotes: e-commerce, the state of usability

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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PROFILES OF 8 USER EXPERIENCE PROFESSIONALS

A closer look at 8 of the many stories represented at our recent
conference: some of the real-world problems we aim to solve.

(*) When preparing for corporate growth, this INSURANCE COMPANY user
experience architect learned that consistency is crucial. After all, time
really is money - especially for users.

(*) Having a quality KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM is important for a global
consulting firm and - as this intranet manager learned - you might have to
junk a legacy system to build one.

(*) Quantitative studies will get you only so far when analyzing how a
site works, as this E-COMMERCE manager learned. But qualitative testing,
correctly done, can provide insights as to why your users do what they do.

(*) Just because the alphabet runs in the other direction, doesn’t mean
that design principles don't apply to websites in Arabic, says this
graduate student from SAUDI ARABIA, who hopes to pioneer the usability
field there.

(*) Promoting BREAKFAST FOOD TO CHILDREN via the Web involves complex
design projects that tax everything this advertising agency business
analyst knows about usability and content organization.
	
(*) It's important to have a CONCISE MESSAGE on your site, even when it's
aimed at doctors. Achieving this goal requires extensive rewrites, as this
B2B marcom manager discovered.

(*) Not only is change constant, but change also triggers further changes,
says this TELEPHONE COMPANY Web consultant.

(*) Although his firm's site is great for ELECTRICAL ENGINEERS, this Web
manager realized that it's unusable by the INVESTORS he also hopes to
reach. So, how do you use one site to reach TWO AUDIENCES with vastly
different needs?

Interviews with these 8 fascinating professionals:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/interviews

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The Guardian has the story on why Useit looks the way it does:

  > http://tinyurl.com/2rt3ds

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CASE STUDIES WANTED: MEASURABLE IMPACT OF DESIGN CHANGES

I am collecting examples of metrics that quantify the impact of design
changes. If you have data you are willing to share, please email John
Berger at [email protected]

Any type of user interface is of interest: websites, intranets,
applications, mobile devices, etc. Also, the design changes may refer to a
complete redesign of the total UI or it could just be a single feature,
screen, or design element that was changed.

Measures of interest include anything that measures how usage changed.
That often means an improvement, but data that documents negative results
are just as interesting.

Example metrics:
  * conversion rate 
  * total e-commerce sales in dollars and/or units 
  * size of average "sales basket" for e-commerce 
  * training time needed to learn a feature or system 
  * sign-up rate for newsletters or other desired action
  * lead-generation
  * time on task and other productivity measures 
  * subjective satisfaction scores 
  * average page views and/or duration of visit per user
  * returning visitor traffic
  * frequency of return visits 
  * number of times a feature was used 
  * percentage of users who bail out at a certain step 
  * number of calls to help desks or tech support 
  * learning or comprehension scores 
  * other usage or impact metrics,
    including new ones you have invented yourself 

For whatever metrics you have collected, please send both the "BEFORE" and
the "AFTER" number as well as a short description of the kind of system
you were measuring and the type of change made to the design. If you can
send us before/after screenshots, so much the better (whether or not you
will allow us to publish the screens), but we are also interested in data
where you cannot send screens.

We can keep your contribution TOTALLY ANONYMOUS and purely report your
numbers as statistics that don't include any indication of what company or
design they refer to. Of course, we will give you full credit if you are
willing to be named. Also, if you send us screenshots, please indicate
whether we should treat the screens as confidential info or whether you
will allow us to publish the images. (Feel free to "sanitize" screenshots
by erasing confidential info.)

All contributors will get a free copy of the report with the full set of
metrics.

If you can help in this project to document the range of measurable
effects from user interface redesigns, please contact John Berger
([email protected]). John can also answer any questions you may have
about this project.

DEADLINE: September 7

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HOW CHILDREN USE THE NET - FOCUS GROUPS VS. BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH

The European Union has published the report from a project conducting
focus groups with children aged 9-14 in 29 European countries:

  > http://tinyurl.com/3af998

In total, 930 young users were recruited to participate in 116 focus
groups. The amount of taxpayer money wasted on this project is astounding;
particularly since one of the main conclusions is that there are NO MAJOR
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE COUNTRIES.
	
(Admittedly, it's necessary to conduct some cross-country research to come
to this conclusion, but one could start by sampling fewer countries, which
is what we did: we arrived at the same conclusion, but much more cheaply.)

It's sad that so much money was spent on getting so few results,
considering how much more could have been learned from spending maybe 10%
of the budget on observational research of children's real behavior while
they are online.

One of the main weaknesses of focus groups becomes clear when comparing
the findings of the EU project with the findings from more valid
behavioral research. We study young users in two different segments (6-12
vs. 13-17), but for the one point I want to comment on, we had roughly the
same finding in both groups.

In the focus groups, young users said that it's no problem using the
Internet and that they pick it up by experimenting and from friends. When
observing kids and teens actually using websites in client studies or for
our research reports, we find that they often have major difficulties, use
sites wrong, can't find information, misinterpret the information on the
sites, and frequently abandon sites they find boring or densely written.

Why this difference?

  Focus groups: no problems, according to kids' own claims
  Observation:  yes, they do have problems

First, of course, users (whether kids or adults) don't know when they use
sites wrong, when they misinterpret information, or when they overlook
whole sections that would have helped them better. Thus, they can't report
on these problems. This factor is particularly strong for children and
younger teens whom we found to have very poorly developed research skills,
meaning that they don't have the strategies to overcome bad navigation or
to realize what they are missing if it's not obvious.

Second, people (particularly kids) tend to exaggerate their own prowess,
especially when discussed in a peer group.

But the most important difference is that of perspective: users' overall
Internet user experience may in fact be good, even while specific
companies and government sites fail them miserably. Users simply leave
sites with poor usability, and kids and teens do so even faster than
adults.

Thus, it's simultaneously true that most sites targeted at young users
don't meet their needs and that young users spend most of their time on
activities that they master fairly well.

This is no consolation if you're in charge of a site to, say, teach
teenagers better health habits, or promote a TV show to ten-year olds. In
both cases, your specific site is probably so bad that most of the target
audience will abandon you in a minute and go back to YouTube. But your
site *could* work, if you designed it based on testing with target users
(and not on focus groups with target users). Watch what they actually do,
not what they say they do.

Reports on how young users use websites:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/kids
  > http://www.nngroup.com/reports/teens