NextStage Evolution/Global founder Joseph Carrabis blogs a lot about website usability and design. In his latest post he drops the lowdown about how our brains are wired to point our eyes wherever other folks are pointing theirs. Here’s the explanation why:

The reason this little game works is because human beings started off as herd and prey animals. Not only that, we were secretive little creatures for several million years of evolutionary history and all of this makes itself known in how our brains are wired to respond to, internalize and use information in our environment.

Our ancestors had to be constantly on guard for lions, tigers and bears. If Og the caveman was talking with me and suddenly looked over my shoulder, he might be seeing a predator. That was extremely useful information to our ancestors, so following Og’s gaze and looking where he looked was a good survival skill.

The point of his article was to explain how selection and placement of photos on a webpage (or in any media) can affect the user’s experience and actions. If you include a photo of people on your site, our eyes follow theirs! So where are they looking? I think good designers are aware of that, whether they know it or not. They can just feel the way the page is working.

Now that Mind & Media is setting up content management systems (CMS) for clients, I couldn’t help but draw a connection between Joseph’s article and the ease of editing a CMS. Certainly a huge advantage of a CMS is that any layperson, with almost zero training, can add or edit website content. It’s a tremendous way to speed site development!

However, while that may be great for dissemination of information, it could be detrimental to promoting message or inspiring action. What you see as snapshots of the latest networking event could actually be steering users away from your “Join Now!” button. The ability to easily edit a page does not equate to the ability to effectively design a page. So think about your purpose.

If your purpose is to quickly spread information, particularly to an audience that is eager to get to it, then a blog or other CMS may be great for you. If your purpose is to convince, persuade, sell, or motivate, then a properly composed page, or precisly cropped and placed photo, could be the difference between your audience’s eyes being drawn to your call to action or away from your site entirely.

I recently found this question on Linkedin:

Right now social networks and blogs dominate the web landscape. What do you think people will be utilizing online 8–10 years from now? Are there advancements in software or web development that you think will become as pervasive as social networks/blogs/etc.?

 

I took a stab at answering, but soon realized what a truly difficult question this was—and how lame my response really was (something about real-time virtual reality and that we’ll all be immersed in virtual worlds, but that technology is already here).

The truth is, who knows what the Web will look like in 8 or 10 years? A decade ago we were excited by email. AOL had the only visual Web interface and tons of people were using it. HTML was the language of the Web, and video had to be small to be seen well.

I did appreciate the creative analogy in this response:

I don’t see this Internet thing keeping people’s attention that much longer. Remember Beanie Babies? Oh, the Internet will be around but it won’t be top-of-mind. People will be used to just like they are use to TV, Radio, and the Telephone. I mean, do you really get excited to watch TV or talk on the telephone? And who even owns a working radio these days. The online world will go the way of the automobile. A necessary evil. Of course, the automobile will be online in a decade or so, which means there won’t be any need to step into the offline. I just hope virtual scent will be created by then because I’d really miss the smell of gasoline when I filled my tank.

I’m not sure I agree, but I sure hadn’t thought of that.

Ten years ago, we had maybe an inkling of how the use of applications would evolve. While the technology itself has remained pretty steady, how we’ve used it has expanded exponentially. What was once a home for static websites is now an infinite realm for interactive social networks, blogs, and wikis. Who would have guessed?

So, how will the Internet landscape look in 2017? Your guess is certainly as good as mine. Take a crack at answering. I’m interested to see what you think the Web will be.

I recently read about the legal action taken by the National Federation of the Blind against Target for having an inaccessible website. Web accessibility refers to the practice of making webpages understandable to people with disabilities. They have to use a wide range of user agent devices instead of standard Web browsers. This case has been with the California District Court for more than a year, and was recently granted class-action status.

The World Wide Web revolutionized how people get information—but it doesn’t always work well for everyone. As Communication Architects, we need to be sensitive to the needs of those with disabilities—and respond with various techniques that make our websites more accessible.

With our government clients, Web accessibility isn’t just an option—it’s the law.

In 1973, Congress passed the Rehabilitation Act, which guarantees:

No qualified individual with a disability in the United States…shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.

Section 508 is a 1998 amendment to the Workforce Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requiring electronic and information technology developed or purchased by the federal government be accessible by people with disabilities. This amendment created binding, enforceable standards that were incorporated into the Federal Procurement procedures complete with compliancy procedure and reporting requirements.

While accessibility tends to get attention in the government world—via Section 508—it should be on every organization’s mind.

The ruling by the California District Court has made it painfully obvious for Target! Making sites accessible takes more time and effort, effort that is often not seen in the final site, but is still important for all audiences.

What remains to be seen is how this case will affect the future of Web accessibility. Will accessibility get the attention it deserves in the corporate world, or will it go into settlement without a final court decision?

Let me know where you think this will go and what you think needs to be done to bring more attention to the world of Web accessibility and 508 compliancy.

Friday I spent most of the day at User Focus, the UPA DC metro chapter’s second annual conference. In their words, the conference was:

A one day exchange of ideas and experiences that demonstrate the value of usability in successful design.

It was that indeed. I really liked it. Small, close to home, and full of attendees working in the area. Understandably, it was good for networking, but it was also notable for the focus of the presentations.

Unlike national events in which you might hear top-tier media firms brag about pushing the limits of Web design and interactivity, the attendees and presenters were talking about issues facing organizations in this area, namely federal government and nonprofits.

How, for example, do you make the two-million-page Census.gov site easy to navigate? Can nonprofits better serve their members via well-designed online social networks? Topics maybe not have been sexy, but they are real and applicable to the folks I work with and the clients we serve.

I also have to give a shout to Ovo Studios, one of the few vendors set up at User Focus. Their usability testing suite was cool for sure. What impressed me is that they offer their software on a lease-to-own basis, Ovo by the Pound. That means small Web design/development companies can offer some pretty high-end usability testing and reporting without having to drop huge dollars up front on software and training. For those of us working fee-for-service, that’s awesome. We can write those services into our proposals and afford to execute them no matter how infrequently they’re purchased.

Yesterday Smashing magazine dropped a long post titled 30 Usability Issues to Be Aware Of. It seemed to go on and on, honestly, but there were a couple terms that jumped out at me. Here they are with their definitions:

User-centered design (UCD)
User-centered design is a design philosophy in which users, their needs, interests and behavior define the foundation of web-site in terms of site structure, navigation and obtaining the information. UCD is considered as a standard approach for modern web-applications, particularly due to the rise of user generated content. In Web 2.0 visitors have to be motivated to participate and therefore need conditions optimized for their needs.

Walk-Up-And-Use Design
A Walk-up-and-use design is self-explanatory and intuitive, so that first-time or one-time users can use it effectively without any prior introduction or training.

Is it just me, or shouldn’t those two definitions simply fall under the heading “website design”? Why must those ideas be singled out like alternatives or options? Why not have an entry called Crap Design? Crap Design is creating a site without regarding site visitors intent on accomplishing something. Try to avoid crap design. The site you’re creating is not for you, it’s for your users. Build it for them.

Here’s a usability challenge for you:

Build a site for an audience who can’t read. My five-year-old can recognize just a few words, but damn if she can’t find her way around a couple of kid game sites (noggin and pbskids) with little to no difficulty! It’s amazing to me. No directions, no instructions, just intuitive design. Sometimes I just sit and watch her and try to learn from the site layouts.

They got it right for sure. She showed up to play games and they made it easy for her. We could learn some lesson there, eh? No matter what you call it.

Sony has recently announced that they plan to sell the first OLED TV during the holiday shopping period this year. OLED stands for Organic Light-Emitting Diode. That’s right, I said organic! This new technology uses a film of organic compounds that emit colors. The new technology doesn’t require back-lit LED and uses way less power.

Will Wheaten, my buddy from Star Trek: TNG (although I liked him better in Stand By Me), explains it better than I can:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ufs9Wx0VXQ]

It’s not all sunshine, though. OLEDs have limited lifetimes and are easily damaged by water. But maybe the coolest thing about OLED TV is you can bend it like Beckham! Get ready to trade in that old plasma screen. That’s already old school compared to the emerging OLED world.