[thelist] Dropdowns - good or bad?

Wed Nov 22 11:10:53 CST 2000

Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers

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Please respond to richard.morris at web-designers.co.uk
To:   thelist at lists.evolt.org
cc:   Martin P Burns/UK/MCS/PwC

Subject:  RE: [thelist] Dropdowns - good or bad?

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

> -----Original Message-----
>> 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?

Absolutely. I'm not involved in the design of our site (I'm a consultant)

>> 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.
ie you prefer the site with the greater usability.

>> Source of figures?

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

Do I get 56k bandwidth on a 56k modem? Rarely. Do I get 512k bandwidth
on a cable modem. Almost never.

btw, my question was about whether sites will become more whizzy, not whether
I have a 14.4k modem

>> 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.
True, but that's no reason to fail the rest of them.

>Sure, many will fail on usability issues but mainly in the B2C
>environment.
Doubt that - I think poor usability is more significant in B2B where time
really is money. B2Bs tend to have better business models too.

>> 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.
The problem (and I ran the research) is actually with the usability. Speed
is one element of that, but by no means the most significant one.

>> 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.
Usability is not a synonym for 'no design'. Take a look at
Jeff Z's site (http://www.zeldman.com/) - highly usable. Take a look
at http://www.open.gov.uk - highly usable, standards compliant *and*
accessible. Worst case - take a look at my site (http://www.easyweb.co.uk/) -
usable and not exactly Nielsen-ugly.

>> Immature businesses moving online tend to go for whizzy,
>Immature, like Ford, Jaguar, Audi, etc. ?
In web terms, yes. Read back a few days to Bob's post about Jaguar.
Audi's is much better.

And it's whizziness for the sake of whizziness (and winning awards for
the designers) which causes the most problems. Whizziness because
it adds value is a whole other ballgame.

>> 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.
I used it for parts of http://www.rbs.co.uk/archives/memorybank/ (quoting
URL from memory), where it added value (and OK, one menu cos we
were requiring users to have it to view the interactive stuff)(

>> 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?
1995 Disability Discrimination Act: http://www.disability.gov.uk/
the same legislation which makes banks/supermarkets install ramps
etc. There's no exemption for web sites - current legal thinking is that
Level A conformance to the W3C WAI guidelines will satisfy the
minimum requirements.

>> 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?
Not enough, even on an experimental basis

>Certainly my company site fails as does PWC's.
+1 on that

> How many sites with DHTML navigation menus pass?
Depends on how it works without DHTML

Cheers
Martin

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