On the web, the success or failure of a web project depends on how much trust web users put on it. I recently launched a site survey where I asked to my readers to tell me more about their Internet connection. This was several days ago and actually nobody answered. That was a failure but why did this happen? Simply put, though search engines have shown a certain interest and trust to this blog, my readers still don't recognize it as a trusted site. I'm not talking about security and privacy, but about what really turns a casual visitor into a devoted user: trust.

Read more »

Errors happen. The HTTP error 500 happens when the server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request (HTTP 1.1 specifications). In practical terms, if such condition is met, a user cannot complete the operation currently in progress and he's often stuck to such error page. When this error is distributed, a user cannot get back to the referring page because the entire site is not responding. This is the worst case scenario for a web site, especially when a payment or another commercial operation must be completed. So what should we do? Let's try to see this problem from a user's perspective.

Read more »

Sometimes I check my Google Analytics stats to find out something about my visitors. Today I found out that some of my visitors use a dialup connection. More precisely, 74 visitors during the last month. I must apologize with these visitors if they found my site really heavy to load. The fact is that I'm lazy and easily distracted. I don't check my stats on a regular base, so I missed some important details. People who use a fast connection often forget how much a dialup connection is slow. I mean, really slow. Dialup connections are the last signs and relics of the World Wide Wait model of the '90s. Anyway, if accessibility and usability really matter, we can't overlook this datum. We should provide a way to access our site contents in a reasonable time span. If I think that my 74 visitors had to wait almost a minute to load my blog, there's only one thing that comes into my mind: I am a stupid!

Yes, stupid. Because I've burdened my blog with a lot of extra widgets that add a really little meaning to the overall context. Users, contents, context: in a word, usability. As developers, we must take a decision: developing a web site that takes into account all the needs of dialup users or, on the contrary, an oversized web site with a lot of widgets and micro applications. Of course there's no need to be drastic. If those widgets are really important to the site, we should provide a low-content version of our pages, for example removing all unnecessary widgets and graphics (and scripts too). By doing so, dialup users won't have to wait a month until a page finishes loading. And this is all good reputation that we actually get and if we plan a site accordingly, we deserve it.

Interesting conference.

One of the worst things in a web application is the fact of using URLs such as user.php?id=1234 for displaying user profiles. For example, a web application such as Facebook wisely doesn't follow this approach. Instead, it uses something like directory/username for user profiles. This also allows the newly created page to be better indexed by search engine.

I don't have access (of course I don't!) to Facebook's database structure, but I guess that there should be a table which stores my credentials, such as first name and last name (say user_first_name and user_last_name), so the point is creating an unique URL by using these credentials, something like this:

$query = mysql_query("SELECT user_first_name, user_last_name FROM user WHERE user_id='$uid'");
$results = mysql_fetch_array($query);
 $first_name = $results['user_first_name'];
 $last_name = $results['user_last_name'];

$first_name = strtolower($first_name);
$last_name = strtolower($last_name);

$user_ url = $first_name . $last_name;

For the sake of brevity, I've omitted to remove any trailing white-space from both strings, but now you can get the idea. Obviously the variable $uid must be previously set. Anyway, by doing so, you have a good starting point for testing. A problem that will certainly arise is duplicate user credentials, for example when there are one or more users with the same first name or last name. In this case you can use other data from the table, such for example an ID or the username chosen during the registration process.

Web icons should be used carefully due to the amount of cognitive load that they generate for users. In fact, an icon is something that users have to decode to properly understand their meaning and semantics. What happens when an icon is polysemic? For example, what does a star mean? Favorites, bookmarks, ratings, or what?

The point is: without a proper explicative text used together with icons, the overuse of web icons may be harmful for users. This is both an accessibility and usability issue. Either people with cognitive disabilities or normal users may encounter problems when dealing with icons. Decoding an icon is something that is often difficult, because you have to think and, as many of you know, one of the most famous usability mottos claims "Don't make me think" (Steve Krug). Further, people with memory impairments may also be affected by the use of icons.

In a nutshell, icons should be used for what they really are, that is, graphics, and not as a mean to convey extra meanings. If you want to use them properly, combine them with explicative text, because what is clear and evident for you may be confusing or obscure for others.

BBC News is one of the few sites that really cares about accessibility issues and problems encountered by people with disabilities during their surfing experience. Take a look at this guide on web browsers for example: this is also a good resource from the point of view of usability and user experience. Surely one of the most worthy sites on this field.

Interesting slides by Luca Rosati and Andrea Resmini (in Italian).

Architettura dell'informazione e user experience

View more presentations from Cultura Senza Barriere.