Build trust through Usability

Today we see so many portals offering various online solutions, how many are actually successful in their endeavor? Let’s try to figure out what’s going wrong with those portals which are not able to keep visitors on their sites and have trouble in converting the visitors into users.
Let’s study an e Recruitment portal.
Job Seeker’s mental model about the site:
1.Fresh jobs are posted regularly
2.The site provides relevant search results in good number
3.The site provides easy and effective search
4.Quick & Easy Registration process / Resume upload / Apply jobs
5.Quick responses from the recruiters.

Items 1 & 5 are not really in control of the site owner, but, 2,3&4 are certainly under control and if all the above 5 expectations of the users is met, they are going to patronize the site.

Assumption

One thing we have to understand, that the users are not going to rely on just one single job site for checking the job opportunities and applying jobs, they are definitely registered on more than one site, as most of us have multiple email accounts of different service providers (yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc). Therefore, no matter how many players are there in the fray, sites that live up to the users’ expectations are going to sustain the competition and get visitors in good numbers and can successfully convert them into users!

Typical challenge for the service provider

As a service provider it is of paramount importance to win the users confidence and trust to ensure a successful usage of the site.

Keep the existing users and continuously add new ones.

Product development approach

The product owners must understand clearly in the very beginning of the product development life cycle, what do they want out of their product? Based on that objective the product needs to be designed.
Allow the user to complete his task effectively, efficiently and quickly, because he’s on the site with a specific goal, in this case, might be for searching a job or applying a job or updating the resume or whatever.
To ensure that, conduct user testing of the key tasks to avoid post production surprises.

Minimize or better avoid distracting images and ads on the key landing pages. Plan the real estate to place ads strategically. If your ads are going to rake in phenomenal revenues then place them in such a way that the users are seduced to click them.

User research results say that users are ad blind, therefore, if important information is placed alongwith them there’s a great possibility of missing user’s attention.

Upgrading the site frequently as per the changing user needs, behavior and web trends keep the user interest intact. Happy users are going to talk good about the site and recommend to their friends, acquaintances and family, free buzz marketing.

End Note

If you don’t have the users, then you won’t have those ads either, eventually.

Notwithstanding the type of service / product, the above strategy holds good for all.

Therefore, to achieve the confidence and trust factor, sites must be User Centered and Usable to ensure continuous patronization.

OK ? certainly not!

I am really puzzled and flabbergasted when the programmers ask the users to click on 'OK' button to close an error message pop-up window. I keep asking myself and am sure you all acquiesce, are we ok with an error in the first place?If not,then why are we forced to click on that silly button? Microsoft guys are notoriously popular for these type of messages, remember how frequently we encounter the message'Internet Explorer has performed an illegal operation,need to close' and as if thats not enough,they shamelessly ask us 'do you want to inform Microsoft corp about this' and we have to certify their inability by going clicking 'Send' or 'Dont send' to close that disgusting window.Unfortunately, IE did not bother to provide a work around as Firefox folks does, ability to restore the session.But, who bothers about the users and their frustration?
A single bad online experience is enough to drive away the users, so beware all you product development folks,users are not OK with all that junk you try to shove into their faces.
Happy browsing folks,wish you all a very pleasant online experience.

Is Findability, Usability?

Hi guys,
Most of the product developers don't give a second thought how their information is organized on the site,because most of the times the information architecture is done by the designers who hardly know what Usability is.I hope you all agree with me if I say that,unless one finds what he/she is looking for in a product cannot use it.If they cannot find it,then they cant use it. Hence,giving the importance to the Findability of information or features is very important.
Let me share an incident happened with me recently,to tell you why Findability is important...
Our iron box is generally placed near the plug point in the corner of my children's bedroom,but that day my wife placed it on the computer table while cleaning the room,and when I went into the room looking for it could not find it though it was right in front of me.I came out of the room yelling that it's not there.I was dragged into the room and was shown it lying on the comp table. It immediately struck me......oh man !!! it's Findability issue :-)
Moral of the incident- though I was looking around was not really seeing the object I wanted to as my mind was programmed to look for it in the place I expected it to be.
That means,Users expect certain information on specific locations,based upon their previous usage experience . Therefore,placing the information in it's place is the best solution and by doing so ,improves the Findability, thereby Usability is achieved alongwith good experience too.

Usability say

How much say a Usability expert should have in product development? And if the management is least bothered about the Usability issues then what?
It's not how much "say" the usability expert has, it's the influence they have on product strategy. For the most part, the usability industry has done itself a disservice by insisting it should be the gatekeeper of good design. Instead, design professionals should make their methodologies more visible and consumable for all company stakeholders. If management is "least bothered" with usability, it's because the benefits have not been communicated in a way that is relevant to them. Example: talk about processes that reduce development cycles, measure the before / after of customer satisfaction, analyse the usability-related costs of support and training, compare your product's e-quotient wity that of a competitor.... In other words, put it in a business context - managers don't care where you place the pixels!