Is Web 2.0 with usability or not?
BBC quotes Jakob Nielsen, while he says, basicly, that Web 2.0 is with a creepy lack of usability. People are more interested in doing fancy things than actualy making them work well. And... Not only I agree with him, but also am having this discussion with several people in the Web 2.0 world for more than two years. Of course that telling this also pisses a lot of people, and we got a R/WW post saying basicly, that none of that is true, and that Web 2.0 has a lot of usability. I'm sorry, I'm not going to use this space to bash anyone, to talk about who's right and wrong or doing publicity to 37signals. I'm just going to pick some examples to show what I mean with lack of usability.
If you're a Web 2.0 developer and really care about usability, please, PLEASE, prove me wrong. I would love to see, for instance, more people working with W3C.
- Have you ever tried to post a comment in TechCrunch using Opera Mini? Well, you can't...
- ...which reminds me the whole issue of "mobile versions" and "mobile portals". When you need to do a web version of your web application to run in some browsers (mobile or not), you sure usability problems. Remember, a mobile device is also a computer with an web browser.
- YouTube was a given example of usability by R/WW. Excuse me? IMHO the only way you can use YouTube in any Operating System besides Windows, Mac OS, Linux and Solaris (like any BSD, for instance) is by downloading the video (using something like youtube-dl or a GreaseMonkey script), since it heavily depends on Adobe Flash, which licence does not permit its use in any Operating System other than those refered above;
- XHR. You know? XMLHttpRequest, that thingie most use in an AJAX implementation. While I think there are great things that are achieved with this, XHR is still NOT a standard (see status and help changing it), and so several web browsers does not support it. Using it is taking usability off your web application.
- Another example of bad usability is taken from an example of "good usability" given on R/WW: NetVibes. You say they have great usability, but their website says:
We currently support Mozilla Firefox 1+, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Opera 9.02, Safari 2+.
I'm sorry, but if you only support some web browers, then you do not have usability.
If you're a Web 2.0 developer and really care about usability, please, PLEASE, prove me wrong. I would love to see, for instance, more people working with W3C.
You make good points, but what you are really talking about is accessibility, NOT usability.
ReplyDeleteI agree with João. And there is another thing you should think of: your target group. If you do a site mainly for non-tech people, you'll only need to make it work in most popular browsers ( IE and FF).
ReplyDeleteIf you make a website for mac users, you should make sure it runs on Safari, Firefox, Camino, etc..
One thing most webdevelopers do is to make a mobile version on the website if there it is proffitable.
Deppends much on each case, anda a website can be usable in diferent context.
João: while a acessible website isn't necessarily usable, a usable website must be acessible.
ReplyDeleteAlcides: a website that isn't acessible is excluding users, thus is bad. If what you're claiming is something like "I'm doing an application for my company to use internaly, and we all use Firefox there", I understand. Yet, even in those cases, you're making yourself a harder time when someone there decides to use another browser.
You should rethink and expand your concept of usability.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the point you're trying to make has anything to do with usability. A site could only work with IE and still excel in terms of usability.
ReplyDeleteAs for not targeting all browsers, the most compatible website I know is OSNews, since it works with every kind of mobile device beside the usual suspects. Very recently, they said they are dropping support to a lot of platforms since it does not make any sense for a user a month.
It's an illusion thinking that you can support every browser in the market. You simply can't. As alcides has told, you need to focus on a target.
Now, going a little bit on-topic, Usability has become a more prominent topic on the Web 2.0. You can try comparing old web sites with new ones and see which ones are easier to use. Granted, old web sites perhaps work on more platforms but, again, supporting all platforms is not Usability.
For a better definition of what's Usability I recommend you the book "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug. In 200 pages you won't see any reference to cross-browser support (although that is also important, but it has nothing to do with Usability).
I didn't know if this would work, but it did.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability usually refers to the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a web site is designed. On the other hand, also on wikipedia, Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a system is usable by as many people as possible. So, is it odd to relate usability with Accessibility? I not only do not think so, but instead claim that accessibility is one needed step for usability. If usability is "enhance the interaction with the user", then why don't consider the "step #1" to "let the user interact", thus accessibility?
Let me quote Carl Zetie on this one: Accessibility isn't just a good idea, it's the law. This focus on accessibility forces companies to think about, often for the first time, how users use and navigate their sites. This means that they have to start considering the needs of different kinds of users with differing abilities--and from there, it's sometimes only a short step into thinking about users with differing tasks and needs. Addressing accessibility can become a backdoor into addressing usability more generally.
So, let me refute some stuff that has been said here in the comments:
A site could only work with IE and still excel in terms of usability.
I disagree. A website is a collection of web pages to be acessible via a web browser. If one user can't use it's web browser to experience fully the website in question, than I'll have to state that, just with that lack of accessibility, that website is not usable for x% of its users, where x% is the percentage of non-IE users. Usability and Accessibility are linked. Stating that "although that [accessibility] is also important, but it has nothing to do with Usability" is having an attitude towards usability that's getting very common nowadays and I personaly dislike, so I tend to purposedly attack: that of ignoring one aspect of usability (yes, I'm claiming again that acessibility is one aspect of usability) just because it's more confortable to do so.
I sincerely hope that in the Web 2.0 we won't repeat the same mistakes we did in general with web 2.0. In the old days "webmasters" usually ignored standards, and made only stuff that worked on IE. We're seeing that again, now not with IE but with a defined setup (OS + browser + plugins).
Ok, if you want to come up with your own definition of Usability, great. But that is not the definition used by gurus such as Steve Krug, Donald Norman or Jakob Nielsen.
ReplyDeleteAccessibility is really important but it must _not_ be confused with usability. One site might be accessible to blind people but, still, lack in terms of usability (take a long time for the user to find what he wants, for instance). The other way around is also true.
And, again, as for supporting _every_ single browser, that's pure idealism. Similar to communism perhaps (that every human being is fundamentally good.. which isn't).
Mario, I'm sorry but I can't see why do you think that my definition of Usability is different than those of Krug, Norman or Nielsen - the only difference here is that I'm focusing in one usability aspect while usability as many others. Advocating Usability is "don't make me thing" attitude, and it surely applies with accessibility, like, for instance, struggling with a website trying to do something until I find out of some broken javascript that only works on IE... that _is_ lack of usability, by the means of lack of accessibility. Krug even talks on accessibility in his book:
ReplyDelete"Almost every site I go to fails my three-second accessibility test - increasing the size of the type."
Steve Krug, in Don't Make Me Think (2nd edition)
One site might be accessible to blind people but, still, lack in terms of usability (take a long time for the user to find what he wants, for instance).
Well, thank you. I could go further and say that one site might be accessible to blind people and still lack accessibility (yeah, accessibility isn't only about blind people, it's about every kind of people). So, yes, taking my stance that accessibility is one aspect of usability, one site can lack usability while having one of its aspects right.
And, again, as for supporting _every_ single browser, that's pure idealism.
What's so difficult in following the standards? Oh, wanting to follow the standards is a good one.
BTW, here's a good presentation about usability, accessibility and markup.