• Pop-ups in front of your window
• Loads slowly
• Tries to trick you into clicking on it
• Does not have a “Close” button
• Covers what you are trying to see
• Doesn’t say what it is for
• Moves content around
• Occupies most of the page
• Blinks on and off
• Floats across the screen
• Automatically plays sound

There are so many gems here that it amuses me. Some of my personal most hated from this list include pop-ups, not being able to find the “Close” button, and occupying most of the page. I have observed that advertisements are getting more and more tricky with their “Close” buttons. This is usually combined with some sort of pop-up. I will be on a website and an ad will just appear with no visible way of getting rid of it. This makes me have to stop what I’m doing and search around the ad for the “Close” button. It is usually the same color as the advertisement or so small that it is very difficult to see. Just recently, I was on IMDB and they were advertising for the new Alice in Wonderland movie. The first thing that happened before I could even do a search was a pop-up of the Cheshire Cat appeared. It took up a lot of the page and I could not find a “Close” button to save me. Finally, I did find it but it was after a substantial search. Not only was it annoying, but that cat was pretty creepy. :/ Anyway, I found this list to be pretty right on target. You would think that with all these negative feelings toward these types of ads that it would reduce the occurence of them. I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon though. Be ready to search for the “Close” button!

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20041206.html

• Prioritize information
• Avoid text that moves or changes
• Streamline the page design
• Simplify navigation
• Optimize search

I think these are great ways to improve usability that can impact more than just lower-literacy users. One in particular that caught my eye was to avoid moving or changing text. This is something that might distract users even if they are not at a lower-literacy level. Now, I understand that some moving elements may add to the website but in general, I think they are not necessary. The one exception I can think of could be a site that has rotating photographs. However, even this has to be done in a way that is not something that will take away from the user’s experience. It is important that we keep all these elements in mind to improve usability for all users, especially those that might be considered lower-literacy.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050314.html

1. The hero can immediately use any UI
2. Time travelers can use current designs
3. The 3D UI
4. Integration is easy, data interoperates
5. Access denied/Access granted
6. Big fonts
7. Star Trek’s talking computer
8. Remote manipulators (Waldo controls)
9. You’ve Got Mail is always good news
10. “This is Unix, it’s easy”

In Nielsen’s article, he refers to either specific movies or movies in general that match up with each blooper. One that I actually remembered was #10. It is referring to Jurassic Park when Lex has to get on and restore the computers so that power can be restored to all the systems. Nielsen says that even if she was familiar with Unix, the fact the she would be able to know how to use that particular system was unlikely. Moving on, I had to look more into #8 to find out what it meant. It is referring to using remote controls to operate something, such as a vehicle. The example he gives is Tomorrow Never Dies, which I haven’t seen. Overall, I thought this was a very interesting list to read through. I never really thought about how movies can seem far-fetched in this sense.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/film-ui-bloopers.html

1. Bad search
2. PDF files for online reading
3. Not changing the color of visited links
4. Non-scannable text
5. Fixed font size
6. Page titles with low search engine visibility
7. Anything that looks like an advertisement
8. Violating design conventions
9. Opening new browser windows
10. Not answering users’ questions

I feel like I am more familiar with these mistakes than I was with the blog mistakes, simply because I am more familiar with websites than blogs. One that really jumped out at me was #9. I don’t know how many times that I’ve been to a website and whenever I click a link a new window will pop open. Before I’m finished, there are so many windows in front of me that I don’t know what to do next! The next mistake I looked at was #7. I had to read more about this to fully understand what Nielsen meant. He’s referring to design when making that statement. He suggests not making any form of the website design to appear like an advertisement because users have programmed themselves to ignore them. I believe this is another valid point from personal experience. I don’t even notice ads anymore unless of course they’re pop-ups. (But that’s another story! :/) I think these are all very important concepts to keep in mind when designing our websites. Even though for this class I chose to do a blog, designing a website is definitely something that interests me for the future. These will be very good to keep in mind!

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html

When I was thinking about this recently, I started wondering if I agreed with this. Basically, the point is made that digital natives know more about technology than the immigrants, because they grew up being saturated in the technological environment. I suppose I would be considered one of these natives. I guess my point of contention lies with how absolute these terms seem. I know a ton of people who would be considered digital immigrants, since they did not grow up in the technological era, that know a lot more about everything than I do. I think there are several factors that have an impact on this. One might be how interested one is in technology. Another could be how much access one has to technology. These factors could greatly influence both natives and immigrants. A person may be considered a digital native but not have any Internet access, for example. Maybe the person just does not care about the latest gizmos and gadgets. I suppose the point I am trying to make is that we should not be so ready to classify large groups of people being one thing or another. There seems to be more to it than the time that you were born. Just a thought!

1. No structure
2. Search and structure not integrated
3. Missing category landing pages
4. Extreme polyhierarchy
5. Subsites/microsites poorly integrated within main site
6. Invisible navigation options
7. Uncontrollable navigation elements
8. Inconsistent navigation
9. Too many navigation techniques
10. Made-up menu options

Now that we are familiar with these top 10 mistakes, I am going to focus on a few of them that I did not really know what they meant. I will begin with #3. I believe after reading the description of this that “category landing pages” translates to what I think of as tabs, or just pages. I do see why this is very important to have in a blog. If bloggers just put all their information on the main front page, that would be very confusing to the people visiting the blog. With these pages, it allows the user to navigate easily to find the information they are looking for. Next I am going to look at #7. I wasn’t sure what Nielsen meant by “uncontrollable.” I discovered that one thing this could refer to would be sensitive drop-down menus that cover up a lot of other things. Nielsen also mentions that this could refer to things that spin, rotate, or make any other kind of movement on their own. This should be avoided so that the user is not distracted by all the extra things going on. I am going to post the link to the rest of the descriptions of these top 10 offenders.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html

As I did more research on this subject, I found that a big part of reaching information fluency was establishing information literacy. I thought it was interesting how various libraries had started specific information literacy programs in order to achieve this. Some of my favorite examples were those libraries that had developed games to promote information literacy. I will post the link to my favorite that I found. It really is a great idea to come up with a fun way for users to learn this information. If they have even a little bit of fun, I feel that they are more likely to retain the information that they are being given.

http://library.uncg.edu/game/

Today in class we are discussing usability. We got into groups and each group was given an article. We had an article that was talking about TiVo and the weekly user testing they went through and what they learned. I’m going to list the main points that we got out of the article pertaining to usability and how that can help us in our later assignment.

• Bullets are needed
• No chunks of text
• Aim for a clean, sleek design
• Provide detailed information through additional links
• Rename links to specify what they are
• Move critical links to the top of the page
• Listen to user input

These points mainly refer to appearance. Users will have an easier time navigating a webpage when these elements are all put into action. None of them are very difficult to implement so we should keep them all in mind when we are thinking about usability in the future.