Recently, I have been working with a calculator that deals with finances. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a financial genius and at times during this testing I found myself double-checking over the meanings of various aspects and outputs throughout the calculator. I wasn’t the only one; throughout the testing a number of participants could not properly articulate what the output actually meant.

Initially to combat this, I had the genius thought of adding ‘?’ symbols where there were issues for the participants, but the range of areas where these could be added were huge. By the end of the testing there could have been ‘?’ symbols all over the place, which in itself creates clutter and hence the usability of the application deteriorates.

So I pose the question: “How much help is too much help?” At what point do we draw the line on how much information we can give to users and just say “if you don’t get it by now, you’re probably not ever going to get it”? In this case it is important to assess who you want to use your interface. Should it really be a case of teaching whilst users are interacting, or should the ‘?’ icons merely be there for guidance?

A cliché which seems to have developed in recent years is the video of a baby using an iPhone/iPad. I must say that I find this a little tiresome and boring – I don’t care how clever your child is! Having said that, it is interesting to note that very young children can interact with Apple’s touch devices.  And it got me thinking, what is it about the design that means that young children, often too young to speak, can interact with them?  I think it comes down to 2 design basics: feedback and a clear call to action.

Apple seems to have mastered the call to action.  For starters, both devices have one physical button which appears to provide children with an obvious start point as well as an incentive to see what happens. Young children explore the world, trying to understand how things work – and Apple’s clear button and subsequent unlock bar lure children into this curious new device.

Feedback is the other core design basic which assists children to understand the Apple devices. The feedback is immediate and also suggestive of what is possible. For example, when a little finger touches a photo and begins to drag it across the screen it suggests that there is somewhere for it to go. And soon, there is a new image.

Apple illustrates how important it is to get the basics of design right: feedback and calls to action, when done correctly, make a device child’s play for the user.

So next time you look at your website (or other device?), perhaps you should think of it from a more child-like perspective! Is there a clear call to action? Is feedback immediate and suggestive for the user? How intuitive is it? If it’s not child’s play for the user to navigate, then it might not be right.

Serving two masters is hard – and if you are trying to build a website to make it user friendly as well as being loved by search engines, then often something loses out. Sometimes something important.

At UsabilityOne many of our clients often face this battle of achieving the appropriate balance between SEO and Usability so we decided to explore some of the issues in more depth and have issued our findings in our latest research report – developed with AtomicSearch .

If you are interested in this topic, you should download our report – “Combining the Forces of SEO and Usability(PDF 1.5MB)”. Over the next few weeks we will blog about some of the challenges and recommendations this report identifies.