Usability Day Poster

Today is World Usability Day.


Recently, a potential client insisted that their navigation be so funky that it was hard to get into their information page. The desired navigation was a set of pictures and nothing else. You’d have to click twice on the same image to get to their information page. Who on earth will click an image link twice expecting two different results? I admit it does look visually good but will users ever get to the information page from the main navigation page? I doubt. What happens to the users who directly land into the information page via search engines? They will never be able to get back to the main navigation page easily. It raises a lot of these questions with respect to usability.

I agree usability must be balanced with aesthetics but in this case, aesthetics is given way too much importance and that hurts the usability a lot. We didn’t work with this company but passed them on to a designer/developer we know and we did tell the designer/developer about the client’s requirements. This designer/developer friend took this job even though she was fully aware of the requirements but now I hear she’s at her wits end. Who wouldn’t be?

People ask others to plant a tree, take care of the environment, stop terrorism, be religiously tolerant, yada yada yada… I say go build a usable website.