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News and Views Internet Technology |
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Making Your Web Site More Usable |
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I also stressed that launching a web site is much easier than many may imagine. For those of you who do not have immediate access to previous editions of The Independent Practitioner, you can find downloadable versions of the articles on my web site (just type in “independent practitioner” in the search engine that is linked to my home page). In this edition I’m going to elaborate on issues pertaining to “usability.” Usability refers to how easy it is for the average web site visitor to use our site in the manner in which we intend. Usability expert Jacob Neilson, in his book Designing Web Usability, projects that there will be 200 million sites and 50 billion pages on the Internet by 2005. With such a volume of sites present, how will quality offerings separate themselves? Two factors will likely predominate: how easy a site is to locate and how usable it is. Until the relevant literature develops further, psychologists may rely upon survey research for guidance on how to create an effective Internet presence. For instance, www.webreference.com, reviews a survey conducted by Forrester Research of “8600 Web households.” The survey attempted to collect data on two key questions: what methods do people use to locate a web site and what factors cause people to return to a site? Respondents indicated that their number one method for locating a web page is to submit a query to an Internet search engine (57%). Next in frequency was the use of email (38%) and other web sites (35%). It is interesting to note that potentially expensive advertising did not place well in the survey. Magazine ads (25%), TV commercials (14%), periodical articles (11%), vendor catalogs (11%), newspaper ads (9%), banner ads (7%), radio ads (2%) and mail ads (2%) were ranked low in importance. While survey research such as this has it’s flaws, it supports two points I have been trying to make in this column: (1) if your site is not positioned prominently in commonly used search engines an optimal number of people will not be able to find it. This is true if you’re in Vermillion, South Dakota or San Francisco, California. Make your work pay off for you. Take the time to ensure that your site is prominently positioned on the most popular search engines (see the previous edition of this column). (2) Having an effective Internet presence need not cost an arm and a leg. Once people are at a site, what keeps them coming back? According to the survey, only four factors ranked higher than 40% (actually, the 5th factor was endorsed by only 14% of the respondents): high quality content (75%), ease of use (66%), quick to download (58%) and updated frequently (54%). I have not covered the fourth factor in this column. But, I’ve emphasized the other three. For a psychologist, I would argue that high quality content refers to at least three things: (1) providing prospective consumers with empirically informed information on mental health disorders (e.g., at least data on prevalence, etiology, assessment procedures, intervention strategies and outcome), (2) clear and salient information on the parameters of the practice and (3) information on the experience and qualifications of the practitioner(s). It is also helpful to provide suggestions for self-help resources and links to sites that provide research informed reviews of mental health issues. Ease of use, of course, refers to usability. I have reviewed usability issues in previous editions of this column and will elaborate further below. Quick to download can be a challenge to quantify. An advisory by www.webreference.com, offers that downloads should take eight seconds or less. However, unless you know the Internet connection speed of your target audience, this can be difficult to judge. More useful is Jacob Nielsen’s recommendation. Quoting research by www.provenedge.com, and keeping those with slower Internet connections in mind, he recommends that webmasters keep their pages below 34 KB in size. Their data suggests that pages greater in size had a 7 to 10% “bailout rate” (Internet-speak for the visitor clicked off the site). However, I’d suggest a further qualifier to Mr. Nielsen’s recommendation. The web sites that psychologists host are likely to be created for audiences with variable levels of motivation. Our home page, and those that introduce our services, are likely designed for those with minimal motivation. Visitors to these pages, we suspect, are in a search or explore mode and have little patience for download times. For such pages it is probably a good idea to keep the size below 34 KB. For instance, my home page (www.helpingparents.net) is 12.1 KBs. Likewise while my private practice page (www.helpingparents.net/practice.html) is 29.7 KBs. However, other pages may be designed for those we project to have higher levels of motivation. For instance, my resources page caters to mental health professionals that have attended one of my trainings. I’m projecting that most visitors to this page are there to obtain materials I’ve told them about; hence, I think it is okay that this page is 44.3 KBs in size. In turn, I have two editions of my resume on my site: a detailed version for the Rank and Tenure Committee at my university (134 KBs) and a version for everyone else (1.7 KBs). It’s typically good to be small and brief on the Internet; however, I would argue that it is okay for you to ad more content in instances where your intended audience has higher levels of motivation. So, what factors seem to be less important for determining a return visit? According to the Forrester Research survey, they are as follows: coupons and incentives (14%), favorite brands (13%), cutting edge technology (12%), games (12%), purchasing capabilities (11%), customizable content (10%), chat and BBS (10%) and other (6%). A review of this Forrester Research survey can be found at http://www.webreference.com/new/990125.html. Elaborating further on usability issues, Steve Krug, in his book Don’t Make Me Think, articulates three primary “facts of life” regarding web page usage: #1 We don’t read pages. We scan them. All of the usability experts I’ve heard from stress this point. Folks are in a hurry, at least when they’re on the Internet. They are unlikely to take the time to read content, at least up front, no matter how erudite or potentially helpful it may be. I’ve seen a number of psychologists’ web sites that are probably too wordy; we have a lot to offer after all. However, if you want to put in a lot of text, it’s probably best to put it in a format that folks can download, print out and read on paper. It’s one thing to put in lots of links and downloadable articles that bump up the size of the page (that can be okay, as I reviewed above), it is another to put in a lot of text (rarely okay). #2 We don’t make optimal choices. We “satisfice.” Borrowing from the term coined by Herbert Simon, which is a blending of satisfying and sufficing, Krug makes a compelling argument that folks on the Internet do not gather data on all of their options and then choose the best one, but, instead, choose the first reasonable choice that comes to mind. Hence, folks click on that which grabs them. This may or not be what we intend for them to click on given their agenda. #3 We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through. Citing a common human experience of not reading manuals, Krug argues that our site visitors do not take the time to consume our guidelines. He notes (page 26):
How someone actually uses our site can be surprising. For instance, the structure we lay out may be quite logical to us and completely mysterious to our visitor. This is why I have argued that a search engine is an important ingredient for an effective clinical web page (see the previous edition of this column), although a search engine does not make a site immune to “muddling through.” For instance, I recently had someone search my site using the word “textiles” (what the?). I’ve also seen someone use the address bar, above my home page (where we normally type in http://…) to search my site. We don’t really know how our site is used unless we complete a usability study. Which leads me to my closing proposal. I’ve pretty much said what I’ve wanted to say in this column about web page authorship and design, at least for now. So, this is my proposal. Would you be interested in having this column evolve into a review of the usability of psychologists’ web pages? If the usability experts are correct, what we might learn together could be both surprising and informative. But, I need some volunteers. Here is what I’d propose. Selected volunteers would receive a usability review. Specifically, I would arrange for at least three people to use the site under observation. I would then share information on how they used the site and their comments about it. I would also add my 2¢ worth. I would offer the feedback in this column and would ask the webmaster not make changes until the relevant edition of the Independent Practitioner has been published for at least three weeks. I would promise to be affirming and diplomatic; my primary goal would be to emphasis what we all might learn together from the experience. David J. Palmiter, Jr., Ph.D., ABPP is an Associate Professor of Psychology, Director of the Psychological Services Center and Director of Psy.D. Practicum and Internships at Marywood University. He also has a private practice in Clarks Summit, PA. His e-mail address is david@palmiter.com. His home page is at www.helpingparents.net; previous editions of this column may be found there together with other web page authoring resources. |
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This article is the fourth in a series. The first three articles covered the following topics: