Usability: hear people swearing in front of your web site
I made a bold statement - that not being able to listen to your visitors cursing in front of your web site - would be an innovation killer.
In my top list I wrote:
There is a fundamental difference between asking somebody "what do you like?" vs. catching somebody in affect ranting / or asking themselves questions while using a web site for real (not testing!). The expression of joy or frustration while doing real use cases - or trying to accomplish a goal - is imho the most valuable feedback.
How to get it? At local.ch we added a shout box into the footer of the page:
We keep track of every shout including the context (page, browser, screen-size). And use this information for various purposes. But - what kind of "cursing" do we get? How useful is it?
First of all - is a "reality check" - they tell you what sucks. Be careful with these - only make judgments if you have enough data and context to back-up your decision to change something.
Grouping comments by page type allows you to spot patterns in the questions/comments. You can try different implementations (things as little as naming of a button) to see how the feedback/comments are changing over time.
People will tell you what they expect to see (they try to achieve) - without you asking them! This is a great source of inspiration to innovate on. Be it incremental improvements - or crazy ideas (there are geniuses out there - believe me).
Do people except answers? Am I going to be busy answering questions instead of coding? My original ideal of the "shout box" do not encourage people to enter their e-mail. At local.ch we tried various versions of the box - the current implementation is bigger (more text and comment about e-mail). In this case you get more people requesting information via this form - what kind of defeats the purpose.
And yes.. it can be fun too. It's interesting to see how off-topic or just plain clueless people can be.. sometimes I'm asking myself if they do that deliberately.
Disclaimer: Creating a web site that is good usable requires more than "listing to swearing". Consult your favorite usability agency to implement an user-centric interaction design.
In my top list I wrote:
Wisdom of the crowds applied to your web site usability. You would be surprised how much insights you would win when you could listen to them. Simple trick: add a shout box into the footer. Keep track of page, browser, screen resolution, shout and start learning! Much more could be done here..Yoan added as comment:
About the “wisdom of crowd” applied to your website, the first rule of usability is: “Don't Listen to Users”Fair enough. Let me share my experiment with doing exactly this.
There is a fundamental difference between asking somebody "what do you like?" vs. catching somebody in affect ranting / or asking themselves questions while using a web site for real (not testing!). The expression of joy or frustration while doing real use cases - or trying to accomplish a goal - is imho the most valuable feedback.
How to get it? At local.ch we added a shout box into the footer of the page:
We keep track of every shout including the context (page, browser, screen-size). And use this information for various purposes. But - what kind of "cursing" do we get? How useful is it?
First of all - is a "reality check" - they tell you what sucks. Be careful with these - only make judgments if you have enough data and context to back-up your decision to change something.
Grouping comments by page type allows you to spot patterns in the questions/comments. You can try different implementations (things as little as naming of a button) to see how the feedback/comments are changing over time.
People will tell you what they expect to see (they try to achieve) - without you asking them! This is a great source of inspiration to innovate on. Be it incremental improvements - or crazy ideas (there are geniuses out there - believe me).
Do people except answers? Am I going to be busy answering questions instead of coding? My original ideal of the "shout box" do not encourage people to enter their e-mail. At local.ch we tried various versions of the box - the current implementation is bigger (more text and comment about e-mail). In this case you get more people requesting information via this form - what kind of defeats the purpose.
And yes.. it can be fun too. It's interesting to see how off-topic or just plain clueless people can be.. sometimes I'm asking myself if they do that deliberately.
Disclaimer: Creating a web site that is good usable requires more than "listing to swearing". Consult your favorite usability agency to implement an user-centric interaction design.
Thanks for that, being open to feedback is great, relying only on them not. Or just let them believing that you are listening ;-)
Your conclusion disclaimer reminded me that Dilbert strips: “How to save a million dollars on usability” http://www.guuui.com/posting.php?id=2174
--
Yoan
Posted by
Yoan |
September 16, 2008 11:58 PM
Interesting video on that topic:
http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-buchheit-at-startup-school-08
Posted by
Frederic Monnard |
September 17, 2008 3:18 PM
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