Usability Findings

While not new, this post from Smashing Magazine on 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines is worthy of noting and keeping around as it is a round-up of specific issues and the of the results of the studies done on them.

INTERESTING POINTS

Users Scroll
The debate as to whether users scroll or not was one that came up often a year or two ago, so it’s great to see a study that says they do indeed scroll. Of course keeping key content ‘above the fold’ is still important, but all is not lost if it does fall below.

Blue is the best color for links
Good to know, but I’ll admit as a designer, a tough one to cater to at all times. It makes sense on sites like google and yahoo to have standard color links when you hope to have the world’s population clicking on them. But, if you have a specific look or branding that needs to be iterated on a site, it’s not going to be appropriate at all times. As long as a link is clearly delineated in some way, whether it be a much different color or underlining, it will still be usable. When appropriate, I try stick to blue.

Effective user testing doesn’t have to be extensive
That it doesn’t take many people to find the holes is helpful to know. I try to pay attention to the little voice in my head that might say ‘is this too ___’. Those nagging thoughts are usually right, but when working with large groups, there may be many people with valuable input and they don’t always agree. So it is extremely helpful to know that testing to a very small group is valuable and therefore, in many cases, actually doable.