[thelist] Some really bad navigation

[Madhu Menon]

> > Here's the challenge. Figure out how to navigate through the site
> > a) without viewing source
> > b) without clicking the "navigation help" link at the bottom.
> 
> Drag the frame bar at the far right to the far left to expose the menu?
> :-)
> 
> I saw it dome first at one of the Guggenheim museum sites. 

Ah, Linda, you are an experienced webhead (can I say "webhead" on this list?
Hope Marvel Comics doesn't sue me).

But for the "rest of them", it ain't so easy. (For those who came in late,
I'm talking about http://www.iloveindia.com)

After I saw this site, I ran a spot usability test on 6 individuals who had
never seen the site before. 1 marketing person, 1 Information Architect, 1
Visualizer, and 1 Software Engineer, and 2 Web Authors (in other words, not
your ordinary "average users").

I assigned a simple task: "Navigate deeper into the site and check out any
one of the site's sections - without clicking on the 'navigation help'
link". :)

The behaviour of ALL the users was almost identical:

1) Look around for any apparent clickable links (they don't find any).
2) Spot the "drag to navigate" graphic.
3) Immediately try to drag the first thing next to the instruction that
looks "draggable", which of course is the inside scroll bar. 
4) Keep dragging the scroll bar up and down, looking for something to
happen.
5) When nothing happens, they try dragging the *other* scroll bar, the
browser window's. 
6) Keep dragging the browser window's scroll bar up and down, with no
success
7) Try to drag the GIF itself. No luck.
8) Give up and hover their mouse pointer on the GIF text around the page
such as "tease", "aspire", "stimulate", "yearn", etc. No luck there either.
9) Move their mouse all over the screen, hoping to find some "secret"
hyperlink that's not apparent (Nope, nothing there either)
10) Click on the bottom frame that links to other sites, which of course
throws up new windows. When they find that this leads to other sites, they
quickly close those windows.

... and finally give up. Not ONE person could figure out what to do without
clicking on the "need help navigating the site?" link.


<tip type="navigation" author="Madhu Menon">

If your site navigation requires a help section to explain how to get
around, that's a sure sign that your navigation sucks :)

</tip>

<<<   *   >>>
Madhu Menon
Head - User Experience Group
Trisoft Systems Pvt. Ltd.  
Global Software Services

Work: http://www.trisoft.net
Personal: http://madman.weblogs.com 


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