Comments on: Conversion practices and usability http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2006/03/15/conversion-practices-and-usability/ Traffic, Analysis, Action Sat, 11 Feb 2012 09:49:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Randy Ziegler http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2006/03/15/conversion-practices-and-usability/comment-page-1/#comment-111 Randy Ziegler Thu, 16 Mar 2006 15:28:00 +0000 http://72.22.16.69/blog/?p=94#comment-111 To continue the friendly debate, I'd like to respond from a designer's persepctive to your points.<BR/><BR/>1. RE: Don't write long text, people don't read it"<BR/>While I agree that readers will tolerate long narrative if it's valuable content, my concern has to do more with chunking information to provide multiple points of access—and better at-a-glance understanding. It's a usability and access issue. Long narrative doesn't provide visual handles for readers to skim and quickly find information that really matters to them.<BR/><BR/>2. RE: Blue, underline links. And Lots of hyperlinks.<BR/>You're right. We've been conditioned. Blue, underline links are commonly understood as links. My concern is more of an issue of quantity. Don't go overboard. Be judicious. Don't get sloppy with throwing links on everything. Otherwise the page look will look like it has blue chicken pox. We've all seen it before. The overall affect is confusion. I think even Spool's research has demonstrated that too many navigation choices affect usability. Each link interrupts the reader's thought process, if only for a moment, to consider the value and utility of the link.<BR/><BR/>Glad you enjoyed the conference!

To continue the friendly debate, I’d like to respond from a designer’s persepctive to your points.

1. RE: Don’t write long text, people don’t read it”
While I agree that readers will tolerate long narrative if it’s valuable content, my concern has to do more with chunking information to provide multiple points of access—and better at-a-glance understanding. It’s a usability and access issue. Long narrative doesn’t provide visual handles for readers to skim and quickly find information that really matters to them.

2. RE: Blue, underline links. And Lots of hyperlinks.
You’re right. We’ve been conditioned. Blue, underline links are commonly understood as links. My concern is more of an issue of quantity. Don’t go overboard. Be judicious. Don’t get sloppy with throwing links on everything. Otherwise the page look will look like it has blue chicken pox. We’ve all seen it before. The overall affect is confusion. I think even Spool’s research has demonstrated that too many navigation choices affect usability. Each link interrupts the reader’s thought process, if only for a moment, to consider the value and utility of the link.

Glad you enjoyed the conference!

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