An increasing number of the websites that we test, particularly redesigned websites, contain some level of social media integration. Social media integration can be very powerful and if implemented in the right way, on the right website can provide an excellent means for a business to communicate with their customers.

Examples of social media bookmark buttons

One aspect of social media integration on websites that interests me is the almost ubiquitous inclusion of social media bookmarking buttons. The most common of these is the Facebook ‘like’ button; however, many websites provide access to a very broad range of similar functions for other social media websites.

In our experience, users tend not to attend to these links during general use of websites. It must be conceded that users may not be in the mindset to spontaneously share information about their usage of social media in the context of a usability session that is not explicitly testing this functionality. Based on our observations so far, it is somewhat  unclear whether the  lack of spontaneous use is due to a lack of prominence, a lack of interest or the test environment, however, when we explicitly test social media bookmarking, we see that a proportion of participants like and use it.

Social media bookmarking has the potential to be a powerful tool in reaching your audience through recommendations, however, when deciding whether to include this functionality it is important to ask the following questions:

1. Does the website audience use social media?
2. Does the audience use social media simply as a means to communicate with friends or also as a means to broadcast information about themselves?
3. Is my content something that users would want to share using social media?
4. How can I use the connections that are made to my audience using social media once they are established?

We love when our clients give us exciting and innovative designs to test and often we agree that an interface that is not immediately intuitive is learnable and so can be considered to be usable for the target audience. Several factors affect whether an interface that requires learning time is usable.

1. Does the effort outweigh the benefits? The effort required to learn the interface sometimes outweighs the benefits of presenting that content in a complex interface. We feel that innovation is essential, however, sometimes the user is required to do a little too much to access content and they quickly lose interest in the content and the interface as a whole.
2. Will the initial effort required to come to grips with an interface put the user off? It is essential that the interface provides very simple and intuitive core functionality to ensure that users are not discouraged during initial use. This will allow users to use core functionality and learn more advanced nuances of the interface over time.
3. Does the interface hide the purpose of the website? When the interface is too complex or excessively visually based the purpose of the content it provides can get lost.
4. How often will the user visit the interface? Some interfaces will be heavily used and re-visited regularly. In this instance the user has the opportunity to learn the interface and become familiar with its features and nuances, however, where a user visits the interface irregularly or perhaps only once, the opportunity to learn a complex interface does not exist.
5. Who will use the interface? Different user groups are more willing to learn and explore than others. While it is true that younger and more technically savvy users will get used to an interface more quickly, these are often the ones that give up fastest. In comparison to older users who are often more cautious and systematic in their approach, more proficient users assume knowledge and are typically less forgiving of an interface that requires learning.

As web technologies advance we hope that this will enable designers to create increasingly interesting and innovative interfaces, however, we hope that the users don’t get lost in the process.

There’s a clever little ad campaign being run on the telegraph poles on my walk home at the moment. Lost dog posters have been appearing all around Melbourne, and I assume in other capital cities, offering a $250,000 reward for a lost dog (living in Melbourne’s inner north, I actually didn’t give the reward a second thought the first time I saw it; people really love their dogs around here). In place of a phone number, the posters give a link to wheresroger.com.au. It’s pretty obvious that it’s an ad campaign straight away, but I liked the approach they had taken and the posters made me laugh, so I promptly whipped out my iPhone as I walked home and headed over to the site to see what the campaign was for.

Of course, the posters are part of a larger competition being run by Schmackos dog snacks. I thought this was a pretty neat campaign really; Schmackos have a pretty fun brand image, and the funny posters sat nicely alongside that. What I didn’t like so much is the website. It’s not optimised for mobile browsers. When running an ad campaign that is targeting people walking around the streets, surely it’s a fair expectation that, as I did, they will take the bait and follow the URL straight away. What use, then, is a website that can’t display some of the key content for getting people to interact with your campaign? When the site loaded on my phone I had not idea where I should go next, and I had difficulty discerning which elements of the page where interactive and which were not. Call to action? Video? Not there either.

When developing anything for the online space, it is important to remember that it does not exist in isolation. Ask yourself why people are coming to your site, what they have come to do, where are the coming from and how did they hear about you? If you are running promotion for a site, does the website meet the expectations set by your campaign? If you don’t ask these fundamental questions before development, you may find that your hard work misses the mark. What would otherwise have been a really fun, seamless campaign for Schmackos misses a great opportunity for engagement just through one decision that wasn’t well thought through.

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…

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.

One sunny day several months ago, my partner decided he just had to check out the new Mazda MX5 and towed me along to the nearest showroom. Whilst we were there, I fell in love with the CX7 but that is a story for another day as I was instead, firmly steered towards the MX5 which stood ready for a test drive.

We drove sedately enough out of the gates, but once we were on the road he put it through its paces. Suffice to say I had a death grip on the armrest by the time we slowed and turned into a residential area. As the road turned out to be a dead end, we needed to make a three-point turn to get back out onto the main road.

It was at this point that my partner realised he couldn’t put the car into the reverse gear.

“What do you mean you can’t put the car into reverse?!?” was my calm reply.

The unattainable reverse gear.

He pointed out that the sixth gear was where the reverse normally was (it was a manual car), and the indicated reverse gear was to the left of first. Only the gear stick wouldn’t move any further left than first gear. I wasn’t convinced until we had made several jerky movements forward until we were merely centimetres away from someone’s garage door.

As my partner tried to call Mazda to find out what to do with the gears, I was frantically looking through the car for a manual. Thwarted, I moved the search to the internet on my mobile. Then, we heard a car horn behind us. The owner of the garage (in a massively intimidating Hummer) wanted in. We had to explain the problem to him and he was all ready to tow us out. Finally, Mazda rang us back. It was easy, he said. “Just press down on the gear and hold whilst shifting it left”.

Just in time. The owner of the garage had had enough. I was scared to death that he would attempt to tow us out and break the bumper making us liable for the damage! We sat in embarrassed silence all the way back to Mazda.

“Well, we’re here,” I said.

“Yes. Yes we are.”

“You know it wasn’t our fault right. The label doesn’t say anything about pushing down…”

“They’re still going to laugh at us.”

Driving. Not that simple.

When a design defies established conventions, there needs to be a obvious indication of how the new design works. Clear concise labelling can be important for guiding the user in learning to use it.