Breadcrumb trails, those links you see at the top of the page that often start with text such as, “You are here:”, provide a number of benefits to users and website owners alike:

• They act as a signpost to where the user is within a site. This is particularly beneficial to users that arrive on your site via a search engine. The breadcrumb trail allows these users to identify what section of your site that they are in, as well as providing a quick preview of the type of content the site holds.
• Breadcrumb trails also allow users to move back to any page in the trail with a single click, rather than multiple clicks of the browser back button.
• They also provide some SEO benefits and Google is now including breadcrumb trails in their search results.

The name “breadcrumb trail” suggests a path that the user has taken to reach their current location (think Hansel and Gretel) and this is certainly true when considering a very linear user experience. However, that linear experience is no longer truly representative of the way in which many users interact with websites, particularly content rich sites where users have a high level of engagement.

Consider the following example, a user arrives at the home page of a news website, they click on the primary navigation option Entertainment, then a sub-heading Movies and then an article. Up to this point the breadcrumb serves the users well in reflecting the journey.

It is quite likely that in order to increase the amount of time that the user spends on the site, in our example above, users are encouraged to click on some form of related content (e.g. blog, video, image slideshow). Typically, this content is located in a different section of the website which results in a resetting of the breadcrumb trail. This suggests that despite its name, the breadcrumb trail is actually intended to demonstrate the location of content within a site’s IA, rather than how the user has arrived at a particular page (insert image).

What does all of this mean for the implementation of the breadcrumb trail, and recommendations we make as user experience professionals? Although our experience suggests that only a minority of users will use breadcrumb trails we still feel that they have a role to play on a website; however the definition and application of that role is a lot more ambiguous than it used to be. What do you think?

Everyone’s time seems ever more tight, and having less than the ideal amount of time to complete a project seems the unfortunate side effect of that. We’ve all got stakeholders who are screaming for results, and that ends up sometimes making us squeeze our own timeframes and those of the team we’re working with.

One area of project preparation where the expectation is that time can be saved is in recruitment. We aim to have a two week window to recruit participants for a study as a general rule, but sometimes we are asked to turn things around quicker. In some instances, such as when the target is quite general or broad, asking our recruiter to turn around a list of participants faster isn’t as much of a problem, but in other instances, such as when the recruitment specifications call for a very specific target such as “Alaskan Malamute dog breeders based in Parramatta who are looking to purchase a new car in the next three months” (okay, I’m exaggerating here, but you get the picture), recruitment at short notice is not as easy.

In situations where timing becomes critical, we inevitably will have to compromise on at least some aspect of the recruitment to meet the deadline. We may have to agree to a broader age target than we would have wanted to test with, or a different mix of genders than is ideal.  These impacts can sometimes be significant on the end result of our projects, because the profiles of the users we test with do not replicate the target closely enough.  This could skew our results, or have the effect of masking significant issues that may have come to light had we tested with the appropriate target.

When we think about all of the factors that are at play in a usability project, the participants we test with are critical to the process. The most carefully crafted research plan will not deliver the insights we need about a target if the participants we test with are just too far off the target of interest. Garbage in, garbage out.

Jo and I stepped into this lift last week and just had to take a photo.  Where is the right facing button going to take us??  I guess it goes to show that implementation is so important.

Often, UsabilityOne work with clients who are constrained in the changes that they can make to their websites by design rules enforced by an international parent company. Employing a consistent design can be greatly beneficial in building a strong international brand, however, in some cases these constraints can negatively impact the user experience of a local website. When constrained by these types of design rules there are several points to keep in mind:

1. Use language that is appropriate for the local audience. It is important that the website speaks to the user in familiar language and not only in terms of product names but throughout detailed content such as terms and conditions.
2. Use images that are appropriate for the local audience. The imagery used is an important branding tool,  used to differentiate categories of content and often are navigable items. The use of inappropriate imagery can be disconcerting and create mistrust. It is important that the images used depict scenes that will resonate with the local audience.
3. Ensure that the iconography and symbols used, are appropriate for the local audience. Icons and symbols that are instantly recognisable to a European audience may not be relevant to an Australian one.
4. Where strict adherence to international guidelines creates serious difficulties for your users, be prepared to bend the rules to ensure the best user experience is provided.

For some further reading, see Christian Arno’s post on Inspect Element.

Meeting with clients in Canberra recently reinforced our belief that the topic of website consolidation is a hot issue right now. Should government departments – and to a lesser extent, corporate bodies – have a proliferation of websites for each campaign and project? Or should their online presence be consolidated in the form of one main website containing all the disparate elements of the business or body.

There appears to be somewhat of a standoff between government and bodies on whether to create – for example – campaign sites, or to incorporate these into department websites.

Creating separate campaign sites has its benefits. These sites can be designed around one focused message, cutting through the noise of the rest of the Department’s activities. However, they also introduce confusion, as users must find a separate site rather than finding all content on the parent Department site.

The Department of Health and Aging (health.gov.au) has individual websites for many of their campaigns, such as How do you measure up?(measureup.gov.au); Alcohol-related harm (drinkingnightmare.gov.au) and the national tobacco campaign (quitnow.info.au). The Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (dbcde.gov.au) has lots of information about the switchover to digital television on their main website but have also developed a campaign website, Get Ready for Digital TV (digitalready.gov.au).

Whether or not to create a stand-alone campaign website  is the question. This is a question that has been increasingly prevalent lately, and we’d love to hear your thoughts or experiences…

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey has just launched yet another new venture, one that has the potential to meet a pressing need in digital payments. Square is an iPhone app that allows people to make credit card payments using only their phone. The system works by using a small device that plugs into the headphone jack and collects the cards swipe data, then users can sign on the phone’s screen to complete the transaction. In addition to its basic function of processing payments, Square also claims to simplify the sales and record keeping process for both retailers and customers by offering several features such as directly emailing receipts to customers, adding meta data such as location to receipts and allowing retailers to set up alternate workflows for common transactions.

Whilst it is unclear whether customers have to already have an account to benefit from most of Square’s features, this is definitely an exciting release for small retailers. Not only will small businesses such as couriers, street vendors and market stall holders be able to cheaply and easily accept credit card transactions, but larger retailers can now also offer on-the-spot transactions to rival the Apple Store’s system with minimal overhead.

Square is not yet available in Australia, but we look forward to getting our hands on it and seeing how the app works. We have recently conducted research for a number of clients looking at attitudes towards mobile payments, especially in the area of security. What we have seen is that products like Square will quite likely face a challenge when it comes to overcoming user’s perception that mobile and online payments are not secure. The behaviors we have observed suggest that, regardless of fact, people still see online transactions as carrying a higher risk than traditional transactions (yes, people will happily give their credit card to a stranger over the phone yet not enter it into a secure form on Amazon), and mobile transactions are even further out of there comfort zones. So the first step that a product like this will have to make is to ensure its design suggests safety and security, and to step users through the process and why certain steps are necessary in order to alleviate any security concerns.

Hopefully Square will be able to overcome the issues and persuade people that using it for payments is a safe alternative. The iPhone (and now the iPad) have opened up a new platform offering interactions that may not previously have been considered, and  designers and developers are rising to the challenge of designing for these interactions with vigour.

The registration process was going smoothly. I just had to enter a password and I would be able to download my last superannuation statement. I entered the same combination of letters and numbers that I always use for my passwords and hit ‘Submit’. Suddenly, red text flashed up and informed me this password was invalid as I needed to include a symbol. Was I meant to be psychic? With a twinge of annoyance, I added a symbol and again clicked ‘Submit’. No luck. This time it told me I had to include two symbols. With gritted teeth, I persevered. After three more attempts, I ended up with a password that vaguely resembled “saRA80#!”.

Although I had no hope of remembering this password, I didn’t bother writing it down because I had already decided out of sheer annoyance to never to use this online process again. Why was my generic password sufficient for online banking but not for this relatively risk-free task? And come to think of it, why should they get to dictate how strong my password should be? As a customer, this should be my prerogative!

Requiring complex password policies not only frustrates customers; it results in higher costs for organisations. Customers will generally either stop using the online process and revert back to more costly customer service processes (increasing call centre demand with their multitude of forgotten password requests) or  write the password down, thereby defeating the purpose of this security measure altogether.

When security policies have such a negative impact on usability, it’s time to rethink priorities. What’s more important to your customers: an impenetrable password or easy access? Incorporate this into your research to find out, or let the user decide for themselves.

Lifts can, at times, be confusing.  Is street level ‘0′ or ‘1′? Did I enter the building on ‘G’ or ‘B’?  Jo and I saw this example whilst visiting the Department of Justice on Wednesday.  And immediately took a snap.

A common misconception about Usability and research, is that focus groups are essentially design by committee. Focus groups are commonly used by usability practitioners to understand user needs and requirements of an interface.  While they are about obtaining a variety of users’ opinions (potentially conflicting) and feedback we would argue that the feedback is not ‘design by committee’.

Design by committee is a term generally used to describe a process in which the design is compromised by attempting to meet all needs and in effect, meeting none.  In a web context, this may mean that in an attempt to appeal to many, the homepage becomes ineffective due to a lack of clarity and/or focus.

While it is possible for the outcomes from focus group research to become design by committee, it is the skill of a trained Usability practitioner that ensures this does not happen.  A truly effective focus group asks appropriate questions which aid in understanding users and their underlying needs. Often it is about understanding user behavior, rather than asking direct questions about what people like and dislike.  For example, by asking users about the process of buying a new home it was possible for us to identify that maps were of the utmost importance and that people were motivated by attempting to emulate their own childhood neighborhoods.

When run properly, focus groups are an ideal means of eliciting user feedback to ensure that designs do meet both the user and business needs.

Card Sorting exercises are one of the methodologies that fill the standard “toolbox” of most user experience designers. Here at UsabilityOne we use them frequently. to assist with developing site IAs.The concept of using card sorts to observe how users group, arrange and label content gives amazing insight into how users view your content and what relationships they see between items.

Considering how successful a card sort can be, it logically follows that a website that can dynamically support users sorting, grouping and labeling content would successfully evolve into the perfect IA, right?

Not really.

Recently, UsabilityOne has helped with development of several sites that have offered such a feature. These sites included areas where users could upload varying types of content, from business case studies to new inventions. During the upload process, users would give each item a category, sometimes making their own category, whilst other sites had several predefined categories.

The issue that we saw across all of these sites was that users’ perceptions of where content belonged, differed. An item that the uploading user felt belonged in one category would be sought in a different category by other users. Frequently we heard users complain that content was not where they expected it to be, and that they felt they were wasting their time trawling through multiple categories.

What had been overlooked is that a successful card sorting exercise also includes a very large amount of analysis. Labeling trends are isolated, card placement across multiple categories is calculated to see which placement was the strongest, outliers are isolated. Most importantly, the data arising from a sort is used to alongside the context of known user behavior and attitudes, as well as business goals and requirements.

The recommended inclusion of a SOMETHING search tool, as well as user generated tags for each item went some way to resolving the issue. However, the question still remains; is it appropriate to have users decide where content will be placed on your site? In these days of Youtube, Flickr, Etsy and a thousand other sites that adopt this process, it may be tempting to jump on board the user generated content bandwagon. However, these successful sites have been built from the ground up to support this sort of behaviour; their very strategies are based around user generated content and dynamic, loosely defined architectures.

If you are considering allowing users to develop content for your site, it pays to sit and consider some points before leaping in. Will it matter if some content is overlooked by users? Will your users be seeking specific items of content? Are your users likely to be invested enough to properly categorise and tag content? And the bigger question, is this really the right strategy for your site, or would your users prefer a more solid, reliable architecture that has been developed and validated by people who properly understand the content?