Forms, Labels and Usability

I received some interesting feedback on a website I was working on. It's a form heavy site where the employees, as they get new customers and leads, enter the information into the database. The forms were designed with the labels right-aligned. The creative team liked it because it looked better. The business owners signed off on it for the same reason.

However, we started to get complaints from the users that "the forms were hard to use." In the end it was decided that left-aligned labels were "easier to read" than were right-aligned labels.

Personally I find the right-aligned text more visually appealing and I don't find the left-aligned text "easier to read." But that doesn't really mean much, does it?

Jakob Nielsens First Rule of Usability

Jakob Nielsen's First Rule of Usability still holds true today: pay attention to what users DO - and not what they say.

This holds doubly true in what users predict they will do in the future.

Say, for example, that 50% of survey respondents claim they would buy more from e-commerce sites that offer 3D product views. Does this mean you should rush to implement 3D on your site? No. It means that 3D sounds cool. The world is littered with failed businesses that banked on people's attitude toward hypothetical products and services.
First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users

When in doubt, think like Dr. House. "The patient always lies about what he does." Do not take the user's "word" for it - send out your staff to ascertain how the patient/user acts,

In short, any and all changes must improve the bottom line. It must reduce the time and effort in accomplishing a task by the users, whether they are customers or employees.

Does Google Analytics Slow Down Your Site?

I’ve heard complaints that Google Analytics slows down site rendering. I don’t see that being possible. A small bit of code calls a javascript file (ga.js) from Google’s servers; this file collects data and drops a cookie in the user’s machine. Since this file is in cache it doesn’t affect bandwidth. The file also calls a 1x1 pixel graphic (_utm.gif) and attaches the data in a query string – at 35 bits the bandwidth hit is irrelevant; nor should creating the query string have any affect.

And yet, while I haven't experienced it, others have complained about Google Analytics slowing their site. They would add GA and response time slowed. They removed GA and response time returned to normal. All I can say is -- place your GA call at the bottom of your page. I would also take a look at your site in general. GA could be the proverbial last straw: check your database calls, see if there is inefficient coding, are the graphics optimized, are you using tables for layout.

The Right to Read

Just in case you haven't read The Right to Read by Richard Stallman, it's well worth it. It's a short-story about a dystopian future where copyright laws have run amok. The scary - and worthwhile aspect - of this article is that every provision is either already in affect or has been proposed.

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college—when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her—but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong—something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPA—the Software Protection Authority—would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishment—for not taking pains to prevent the crime. Continue Reading >>

Richard Stallman is the godfather of the privacy movement. While I disagree with him on many issues the world is a better place as a result of his work.

IE 8 is out - first impressions

IE 8 is out. So far I like it. It's fairly responsive. It is fairly compliant to CSS standards but one thing I'm not to fond of is a feature called "Reopen Browsing Session." Its purpose is to allow you to restore browsing sessions but there doesn't seem to be a way to prevent this from happening outside of browsing in "InPrivate" where the browser, from the outset, doesn't record your session.

What if you want to remove your browsing session? Simply removing the offending site from the history does not remove it from the session list. This is a serious privacy flaw.

Why, you may ask would anyone care? The issue is more than pornography and hiding the fact that you were working on personal issues while at work. Privacy is just that. Privacy. It's an end in itself. You do not need to be writing evil, horrible things to not want your diary being read. You do not need to be reading evil, horrible things to not want people to know what you did and when you did it.

Now, if you are at work, and you are not doing what you are being paid to do - that is a different story.

EDIT September 14, 2010

How To Disable “Reopen Last Browsing Session” In Internet Explorer 8 An excellent tutorial to disable "Reopen Browsing Session."

Sponsored Conversations

Analyst firm Forrester published a report this morning telling corporations that it's a good idea to engage bloggers in "sponsored conversations," or the exchange of goods or credit in exchange for blog coverage. The report, titled "Add Sponsored Conversations to Your Toolbox", is 8 pages long, focuses on a number of high profile examples like the case of KMart and Chris Brogan, and sells for $795.

We respectfully disagree with Forrester's recommendations on this topic. In fact, we think that paying bloggers to write about your company is a dangerous and unsavory path for new media and advertisers to go down. We recognize that it's a complicated question, but we don't feel convinced by Forrester's conclusions regarding those complications.

Forrester is Wrong About Paying Bloggers

Forrester is promoting a very dangerous idea. It is a good short term way for bloggers to make money but, if abused, will in the long run diminish the value of the blogosphere. The flip-side to this argument is that there is a lot of pay-to-play in the print media (you buy this ad I write an article about you) and few people question the validity of print media.

Yelp is Having Problems

Yelp continues to have problems. They have an algorithm that purportedly decides which reviews are displayed and which are removed, and yet there is something not right about Yelp. I'm not the only one who has noticed that there are many "obviously" fake reviews and there is a lot of annecdotal evidence that if one buys advertising bad reviews can be removed. I have not experienced that but I have heard many first hand complaints.

According to Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's CEO: "It's normal for a merchant to see the number of its reviews rise or fall from day to day, and for reviews to mysteriously disappear." "That's normal. It's part of how Yelp works," he said. The reason we do that is to show only the most trusted content. It's nothing nefarious.

"The timing of reviews that appear or disappear after a merchant accepts or declines an advertising contract is purely coincidental, Stoppelman said. He acknowledged that there can be false positives, in which legitimate reviews are removed.:

Yelp's credibility problem: Blame it on algorithm?