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BOOK REVIEW

Web Site Usability: A Designer’s Guide
by Jared Spool, Principal Investigator; Tara Scanlon; Will Schroeder; Carolyn Snyder; and Terri DeAngelo
© 1997 by User Interface Engineering

"My recommendation: buy it, read it, re-read it, then go forth and implement sites with improved usability!"
@ the reviewer
Dick Miller is a technical communicator at Hewlett-Packard Company’s Vancouver, WA site.
Reviewed by Dick Miller, DICK_MILLER@HP-Vancouver-om10.om.hp.com

Jared Spool and his teammates at User Interface Engineering have performed a great service to those of us who have had an annoying, empty feeling while listening to one self-proclaimed expert after another expound upon what makes a "cool" web site. Their contribution is simple, yet essential: data. Once the sizzle is gone, most business web users expect to find some steak; that is, they use web sites not for entertainment, but for information. This study provides insight into the success of these information-seekers with various web sites.

The book is a report on a ground-breaking study (which has continued and is ongoing) of the usability of nine web sites, using more than 50 subjects who had some familiarity with browser use. They tested the sites for the subjects’ success in finding facts, comparing facts, making judgements, and comparing judgements.

The findings are, to put it mildly, interesting. In Spool’s own words, "You may be surprised at some of our findings. We certainly were!" To illustrate some of these surprising findings, consider the following findings about user success:

  • Graphic design neither helps nor hurts.
  • Text links are vital.
  • Navigation and content are inseparable.
  • Information retrieval is different than surfing.
  • Web sites aren’t like software.
  • Sites with lower readability scores produced higher success rates and were seen as more useful.
  • User preference for a site is not a good indicator of successful use.

The study has specific findings and recommendations related to the following web site considerations, among others:

  • Use of graphics
  • Wording of links
  • Use of a shell strategy (structure first, content later) for sites.
  • What we know about designing software and how it relates to designing web sites
  • Users’ mental models of sites
  • Use of navigational devices such as frames, tables of contents, navigation bars, hierarchical maps, site maps, and "you are here" prompts
  • Search techniques
  • FAQs

Subjects were given an eight-item questionnaire after each task. Seven items had a seven-point Likert scale; the eighth was a fill-in. After all tasks were complete, the post-test questionnaire given to users consisted of sixteen items, each with a 7-point Likert scale for ratings. To get the numerical success scores, three items from the post-task questionnaire (subjects’ reported frustration level, perception of how long the task took, and confidence in the answer) were used because of the high correlation between subjects’ responses and their success on the site. The total score was then converted to a percentage. For the sites tested, these scores ranged from 13 to 43 out of 100, with a mean of slightly more than 28.

Money spent on the site seemed to be unrelated to user success. A recent Info Week article about this study reported that nearly $US10 million was spent to launch the Disney site, which received the lowest success score. Another infusion of cash to make changes resulted in a score increase of only five points, still leaving it at the bottom of the list of sites. On the other hand, the site with the highest usability score was created for only about $10,000.

There’s a lot of food for thought in this study. I’ve gotten something else out of it each time I’ve read it. Spool and his team have done a great job of increasing awareness of many opportunities for improvement in the usability of web sites.

My recommendation: buy it, read it, re-read it, then go forth and implement sites with improved usability!


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Last update: June 1, 1998
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