[thelist] Dropdowns - good or bad?

Richard H. Morris richard.morris at web-designers.co.uk
Wed Nov 22 10:10:58 CST 2000


martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> >It's nothing they haven't seen elsewhere.
> But is it something which they have to *think* about? Do they *really*
> know it (rather than having seen it) - the word I'm reaching here for is
> 'grok'. If users don't grok an interface paradigm, they won't use it
> as effectively, and the communication/commercial aims won't be
> realised to the same extent. That's the name of the game, surely?

Apparently not, according to your employers: the pwcglobal.com web site has
*two* drop-down menus on the home page!!! Pot | Kettle | Black error?

> >And truly horrible the latter looks too!
> But highly usable.

No argument there.

> (although the BBC's high bandwidth version is a good
> compromise).

It's an excellent site for many, many reasons.

> Why do you think that Yahoo gets the traffic it does? It's
> butt-ugly, but highly usable.

In a word: content. I actually find it a complete pain in the bum to get to
anything useful on Yahoo! which is why I don't use it, preferring...

> Google is even more task centred, and is
> punching way above its (lack of incumbancy) weight.

... this one.

> >in these
> >days of ADSL/cable and fast modems are we a dying breed?
> Yes. Until we all have Tb capacity links, we will need to code for speed.

Which is what we do.

> Source of figures?

None whatsoever. Take a look at your company's comms. provision. 14.4k
modems? I doubt it somehow.

> Likely estimation of how many will fail through poor usability?

Not half as many as through a failure to actually plan a revenue/business
model. Sure, many will fail on usability issues but mainly in the B2C
environment.

> Take a look at http://www.work24.co.uk/ - try and register. That will tell
> you why it's failing. They're getting loads and loads of hits to the front
> page, but almost no registrations (ie conversions to customers).

I find those sorts of delays with many back-end driven sites.

> Quite the opposite actually. I see sites maturing into greater
> usability, or
> failing.

I fail to believe (in the B2B context especially) that we'll all be
reverting to basic HTML-only sites like the institutional/research sites
where content is king.

> Immature businesses moving online tend to go for whizzy,

Immature, like Ford, Jaguar, Audi, etc. ?

> I really do see Flash moving towards the area it does best - complicated
> animated interactivity - and away from replacing HTML in the areas which
> HTML does extremely well.

Agreed. I have yet to use Flash for a web site.

> He doesn't claim to be a visual designer. But take a look at his traffic
> figures... Positive ROI? I think so.

In much the same way as the motivational speaker types generate business...

> If the client is providing a public service in the UK (also other
> countries,
> but the UK is the area I know best) then they're legally bound to be
> accessible.

<genuine question> I'm not aware of that legal requirement: could you give
details?

Of our Clients doing both B2B and B2C business, their sites are indeed coded
for accessibility.

> I would also point out that there are 10m people in the UK with registered
> disabilities. A reasonable market if I'm not mistaken.

Indeed, although that again depends upon your Client demographic. I wonder
how many sites written by designers on this list are written to comply with
Bobby's usability/accessibility in mind?

Certainly my company site fails as does PWC's.

How many sites with DHTML navigation menus pass?

> > No: because they work for the sites in question.
> Do they work because
> 1) you think they do?

In the context of Client requirements, yes.

> 2) the client thinks they're nice?

Yes.

> 3) you've done Usability Testing as part of your development programme?

No, because the Client has not requested that service - usually because of
budgetary constraints. We don't run focus groups, usability testing
workshops, etc. unless the Client is willing to pay for them.  But then our
Client base does not want to spend many thousands on their sites either...

> 4) You've assessed the ROI of your design work?

Nope.  However, our Client base again is simply making the CVA against
traditional advertising rather than as a new medium.

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Richard H. Morris, Director, Web Designers Ltd
        http://www.web-designers.co.uk
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