Hook, Line & Thinker newsletter, published by Troutdream Graphics - March, 2003

Are users stupid?

Six or seven years ago I designed a website for a large Seattle biotech firm. I was at a meeting presenting the design options I had carefully created for their site. The most senior staff member from the biotech firm – a highly educated and experienced VP – pointed to an icon of an envelope and asked “what’s that?” Somewhat surprised, I replied, “you click on that to send email.” “Oh,” She said, “I wasn’t sure. I thought maybe you clicked that to ‘put away’ the site – you know, like you’re folding it up and filing it away.”

It was an eye-opening moment. My first thought was, how could someone not know that an envelope icon is email? My second thought was, how out of touch with the real world am I?

Are you experienced?

Designers often complain that users in usability studies are “too stupid” and that “real users” can figure out complex sites. They claim that the people who run usability studies deliberately select people without experience. But every experienced user was inexperienced at one point. It’s a little arrogant to think that there’s something wrong with someone who doesn’t know the same things we do. Users have their own expertise. They negotiate contracts, treat patients, design buildings or electronic devices, raise families or food. Why should they waste their precious brain cells trying to figure out how to use your website? There needs to be a pretty big, known payoff if you’re asking them to think, decipher, download special plug-ins, wait or even read. For example, a motivated user might go through some effort to learn how to pay bills online or listen to favorite music.

It’s a tough, competitive world out there on the Web. The prize goes to the company that makes it obvious what they do and easy to do it.

It’s imperative to design for the “typical user.” Unfortunately, he’s busy right now and can’t come to the computer, so we’ll have to deal with the rest of the users. And they all use web sites in different ways.

Most scan, many just click on the first likely-looking link, some search, some poke around randomly, a few are systematic, a surprising number focus quickly on one or two areas and ignore the rest of the page - as if it weren't there. And so on. What’s a designer to do?

The rules are simple:

1. Don’t reinvent the wheel – Be kind to page scanners. They are legion. Use navigation and labels that are in wide use and likely to be familiar to users.
2. Break pages into clearly defined areas - Even if the words on the page were in Martian, users should be able to tell at a glance what areas contain what types of information - site identification, navigation, news, specials, etc.
3. Offer multiple ways to explore the site – it increases the odds that any given user will find a way that suits his style.

When people have trouble using a site, they tend to blame themselves - they feel stupid. If using your site makes them feel smart and in control, you're well on your way to a successful relationship.

And what happened with the biotech exec who didn’t understand the envelope icon? I thanked her sincerely for the lesson and we used icons paired with labels.

If you have a web-related question, drop me a line. If I don't know the answer, I'll find out.

You can find other articles and past issues of this newsletter at http://www.troutdream.com/stories.html

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