Youtube, who’s heard of it? Everybody according to a report released last month  [http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/online-videos-approach-a-billion/story-e6frg996-1225916568105] which states more and more people in Australia and across the world tuned in online to watch the latest clips and videos. And, although it saddens me to see that Justin Beiber’s song, “Baby” ft. Ludacris has taken the crown for most watched video of all time, the first video ever to reach over 300 million views, we can turn this tragedy around and use evil for good.

So while you may not be a prepubescent teen lamenting on puppy love, you can incorporate video into your site to increase its popularity, regardless of whether you want to earn money, share knowledge or increase page views. To assist, we have come up with the following pointers on how to incorporate videos into websites:

• Make it snappy. Smaller chunks of videos attract a viewer’s attention and will hold it compared to longer single clips.
• Pop up windows don’t work. Instead, place the video in the page – this helps the user read the text in conjunction with the clip.
• Stick with interface conventions. Although you may have the urge to break the mould, don’t. Turning a play button icon into a hexagon may confuse and/or alienate your viewer.
• Ideally, avoid including advertising however if this is not possible choose your advertising videos wisely. Make sure your adverts relate to the website content.
• Finally, and most importantly, quality. Sound volume going up and down is never a turn on. When creating your video pay attention to the quality of your video and audio content

With 84% of brand and agency marketers currently using some form of online video in their marketing efforts, now is definitely the time to jump on the bandwagon and make your site noticed. But what do you think? Have we missed anything out? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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?

From online flight boarding passes to application forms, we all use PDF more than we probably realise. And with the Federal Government making all paper-based forms available electronically in PDF format as part of its Electronic Services Delivery strategy, PDF continues to be an essential part of our day-to-day lives, both at work and at home.

However, while we encounter PDF frequently, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it is the best method for us to use. In fact, it’s almost taken for granted that it’s just the way to do things – so we at UsabilityOne decided to investigate this further, and bring to light the real user benefits and limitations of interactive PDF forms.

You can check out our findings in our latest report, Incorporating the role of PDF in the Australian Government’s Electronic Services Delivery strategy.

Once you’ve checked out the report, make sure to tell us about your experience of using PDF by commenting here!

Purchasing online often involves a number of factors which are nonexistent in the physical world. Questions such as product availability, delivery options and delivery price take on greater meaning when shopping online. In the physical world these questions are answered before the stage of paying for goods; we know if a product is available because it is on the shelf, and delivery for most items is not usually an issue as we can take the product away with us.

image by emmerrrrrrr (flicker)

What can often frustrate users online is when these questions are not addressed until too late in the purchase process; when the user has already made some sort of a commitment to the product, only to find out it’s either not available, cannot be delivered in the expected time frame/location or delivery costs are too high. Had the user known these factors upfront during their browsing phase the frustration levels would be a lot lower and the chances of that user staying a customer much higher.

It is important to inform the users of the following before they arrive at the checkout. It  may be just enough for users to stay a customer rather than go straight to a competitors site. A few small changes can have a great impact on a user’s shopping experience

• If a product is out of stock provide this on the product listing page
• Offer an email alert when the product become available
• If, for whatever reason, a product cannot be delivered in the company’s standard time frame (next day delivery for example), provide this detail upfront on the product listing page, before users have committed to the order

Reducing user frustration leads to a much more happy and satisfied customer. And satisfied customers are more likely to return. Empowering users by giving them information before arriving at the checkout process of factors such as product availability, delivery time frames and costs is one simple method to do this.

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.

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…

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.