(August 02, 2004) -
Neilsen's
Top-10 Guidelines for
Homepage Usability are an interesting starting point. But, don't think
the battle is over because you have met a couple of graphic design rules.
Usability is really a market targeting and segmentation exercise. The question
is not "is this website usable for everyone?" Rather it is "is
this material usable for my audience in the way that they want to use it?" That
means that usability begins with the question "Who is my audience?"
While the high profile websites can afford
to use guidelines about usability that apply to everybody, the challenge is more
severe when communicating with a small group.
Many of the general principles of usability break
down when applied to niche communications. When audience motivation is high, the
idiosyncrasies of a small author/publisher are endearing and actually facilitate
usability. The exact same approach fails at 'scale'.
So, the next most important usability question is
"How large is my audience?" followed immediately by "How
motivated are they to consume my stuff?"
Neilsen's
Usability 101 is also worth reading.
-John
Sumser