Posts Tagged ‘Usability’

According to a study carried out by Southern Illinois University men consider download speed to be more important than women do. 301 undergraduate students were surveyed about the relative importance of a range of usability criteria. Both men and women considered ease of use to be the most important. However, men indicated that download speed was the next most important while women rated accessibility and navigation as more important.

The researchers have suggested that this difference may be a result of differences in the way men and women use the web, with men using it for information gathering and women using it for social relationships. However, it is unclear whether this expressed preference will actually have a bearing on behaviour. Just because women say it is less important does not mean they are necessarily more likely to remain on a site with large delays. Neither does it indicate what men and women consider a slow download speed.

Usability Study: Men Need Speed

One issue of contention between many copy writers and usability specialists is the user of ‘click here’ within links.  The use of these links is often promoted as they tell the user exactly what they want the user to do. Brian Clark makes this point in his article ‘Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?‘.   In the article he encourages site owners to use actionable links (the ones that tell the user what to do) if you really want to users click.  

Compelling copy and careful labelling of links play a vital role in directing users towards performing the right action.  There are also times when, particularly on marketing sites, encouraging users to perform a particular action out weights the understandability of the links.  However, even in these cases there is no reason the call to action could not be both descriptive and actionable e.g. ‘click to buy’ rather than ‘click here’. 

In the article he highlights a study by Marketing Sherpa he felt supported his point of view.  However, this study compared click through rates for three terms (‘click to continue’, ‘continue to article’ and ‘read more’) none of which describe the content the link goes to.  Also just because the user clicked on a link doesn’t mean that they were taken where they expected to be or didn’t immediately select the back button.  This highlights why it is so important to be careful of any user research, questioning whether it applies in your particular case, looking at the method used and whether other interpretations for the findings apply.

The article also addresses the arguement that ‘click here’ wastes anchor text that could contain terms designed to boost search engine ranking.  Quite rightly Brian  rejects search engine optimization over the experience on the page.  However, when search engine optimization will lead to more understandable links that describe what they link to the arguement can’t be easily dismissed.

In answer to the question posed by the article ‘does telling some one to click here actually matter’.  The answer has to be yes.  Actionable links may encourage users to select that link but it doesn’t mean they will go where they want to.  Labelling something ‘click here’ tells the user nothing about the result of their action because ultimately any link could be labelled click here.  However, this does not mean actionable phrases can not be included in descriptive links or that the label affects link performance. 

One of my pet hates is the use of ‘more’ links to take the user to the full story. This is not limited to ‘more’, ‘full story’, ‘go’ and the greater than sign being used as links also attract my distain. My problem with the use of these terms in links is that they tell the user nothing about the content that they link to.

The user has to look at the content around the link to identify what it does. This is fine if the user has been reading the proceeding paragraph, however very often users will scan the page for links if they are trying to navigate to content that will fulfill their goals. In a well designed site links should standout from body text allowing users to easily identify them. If links are not descriptive the user will need to then identify what content they are likely to link to.

This issue is worse for those that use speach browsers. These browsers have a facility that allows users just to hear the links within the page so they do not have to listen to the full page when they are trying to locate something. However, if links are labelled more it will do little to inform them where the link would go and they may end up listening to several more links in a row unable to distinguish them.

I’ve heard it suggested that the title tag could be used to distinguish more links for speach browsers. This is true, although the user will still need to listen to a meaningless label first. However, how much simpler is it to provide a descriptive link or make the title the link.

Having said this ‘more’ can be used effectively in links when teamed with other words to provided a description of the content, such as ‘more categories’ or ‘more news articles’. It is when it is used on its own as a generic term for this is a link. The only thing worse is the use of the term click here. I apprechiate people may want you to access a certain piece of content, but honestly what else are you suppose to do with links.