Use me!
A big field of computer human interaction is usability, which means how well certain things can be used by their user. These things can be anything from the handle of a door over a car seat to a website - everything that can be used can be judged by its usability. For man-made objects, this means the design is scrutinized under certain criteria - such as affordance or suitability - and it won’t surprise you that many designs spectacularly fail this scrutiny (especially the ones that are uber-pretty: let it be said, design isn’t everything!).
Jakob Nielsen has specialised in researching the usability of websites, and he wouldn’t be pleased with what the Deutsche Bahn does here:
Let’s play “Hide the link”
What you expect to happen is that you can access the various options for the newsletter from the bulleted list. The words “Newsletter Abonnement” may also be a link, but since they are not underlined, again maybe not. And is the image above just a graphic or a link as well?
The solution to the little game of guessing is: the image and the words “Newsletter Abonnement” lead to the same page but the big surprise is the bulleted list - it does absolutely nothing. You can click on the list items as much as you want, you won’t get anywhere, which is confusing to say the least. How is the user to know when something not underlined is a link and when not?
If you think I’m nitpicking remember that this is a very simple example and nothing is really at stake here, i.e. no money is spent. But studies show that about half of all online shopping trips go awry because users couldn’t navigate the website.
It’s the little things that make a website - anything, really - usable and while the above example is only unnerving (about three clicks wasted every time before the user remembers the bulleted list is just pretty), usability is becoming more and more important in all aspects of life.
Tags: usability
