Web Usability

By Scott Wallace

This article is the second in a three-part series titled "Online Writing." Part 3 will be published in the April/May issue.

Part 1: Editorial Content on the Web. An introduction to the brave new world of hypertext.
Part 2: Usability. An overview of research into how people read Web content—information that influences every decision a writer makes.
Part 3: Writing Effective Online Copy. Guidelines for structuring and writing usable Web content.

It's about content that's "concise, scannable, and objective"

Web usability refers to the ability of users to locate information on an Internet or intranet site (whether or not they know exactly what they're looking for), to understand what they're reading, and to use whatever interactive features are required to take full advantage of the site as designed.

Rooted in the study of human-computer interaction, usability addresses all dimensions of a user's experience of a site—text; information architecture and design; graphics; navigation, browsing, and searching; page and site design; and such behind-the-screen elements as databases and JavaScript—tightly interwoven.

The foundation for most research and practice in the usability field is a series of studies conducted in the mid-1990s by Jakob Nielsen, then a distinguished engineer at Sun Microsystems in Palo Alto. Nielsen's broad-based investigation brought him to the inescapable conclusion that, in the user's mind, "content is king."

"When asked for feedback on a web page," he observed, "users will comment on the quality and relevance of the content to a much greater extent than they will comment on navigational issues or the page elements that we consider to be 'user interface.'"

Subsequent research by Nielsen and others supports this finding. See Usability Resources for further reading.

Users as Ruthless Carnivores

In 1997 Nielsen and his Sun colleague John Morkes published what to this day remains the most widely cited article on the subject of usability. "Concise, Scannable, and Objective: How to Write for the Web" summarizes four years of Sun research on how users approach web pages.

Their major finding was that the factors most essential to usability are conciseness, scannability, and objectivity of editorial content.

The Nielsen-Morkes team had volunteers read five versions of a travel site—one designed to be concise, a second scannable, a third objective, a fourth that combined all three, and a control version. The first three versions increased usability by 58, 47, and 27 percent, respectively, and the combined version by 124 percent.

In a later project, the Sun scientists rewrote content from their company's web site, focusing on the same three factors. Study participants found the revised material 159 percent more usable than the original.

Based on their research, Nielsen and Morkes concluded that Web users

• Want to get their information quickly
• Like summaries
• Want content written in the inverted pyramid style
• Think content should follow "conventional guidelines for good writing"
• Prefer a simple, informal writing style
• Like hypertext links
• Rate credibility as an important concern
• Detest anything that smacks of "marketing fluff"

The most common activity of Web users, Nielsen noted elsewhere,

...is to hunt for information and be ruthless in ignoring details. But once the prey has been caught, users will sometimes dive in more deeply. Thus Web content needs to support both aspects of information access: foraging and consumption. Text needs to be scannable, but it also needs to provide the answers users seek.

Leading Users to the Prey

Creating content that moves users efficiently from their entry point at a site to the information they're hunting requires that writers and editors be familiar both with the behaviors and preferences of Web users in general and the guidelines that have evolved from usability research.

Moreover, content developers must take into account the needs and expectations of those in the site's target audience. Writing and structuring material in a way that makes information more accessible requires, among other things, the ability to anticipate how the intended user would navigate and browse a site and the terms he or she would enter as keywords in a search field.

Content is king, and the power behind the throne is an editorial team well versed in usability.

Usability Resources

See Usability Resources for further reading.

The Devil Mountain Views -- Mar/Apr 2002
(ebstc.org/newsletter/front.html)
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