The tireless Jakob Nielsen keeps insisting that the only way we will figure out how to0 use information tools is to research that use. Since, to a large extent, we are still making it up as we go aklong, a lot of website design is handed over to guesswork, so Nielsen decided to test it. Guesses vs. Data as Basis for Design Recommendations

When Guesses Go Horribly Wrong
Comparing our two case studies, the guessing camp from the text-size example had by far the worst performance. A person who based a design decision on these guesses would be wrong 3/4 of the time. In the bank example, they'd be wrong only 1/2 the time.

So, why the miserable discussion-group guesses? The answer lies in the following two statements:

* "In this day and age..."
* "It's not 1995..."

Sadly, too many Web designers refuse to believe in the durability of usability findings. Thinking that "things that were difficult in the past must surely be easy now" has led many websites to their doom.

When we actually study real users, we see how slowly they learn about technology and how little their ability to use fancy websites has improved. And, most important, we see how little users care about learning fancy Web techniques. People just want to get in, get their stuff done, and get out. They don't want to learn.

Guesses go wrong because many designers desperately want to believe in the potential of advanced design. They simply can't fathom how little most people know about their pet technologies.

(Yes, in recent testing, we did find a few small advances in users' skills, but it's slow progress; you'd better believe that simplicity will continue to win the day for decades to come.)

For those of us who have been using, and in some cases making a living from, these tools for a decade or more, the hardest thing to realise is that the vast majority of the world is not like us.

Ask many organisations what their website is for and you will get something like, "so people can find out about our organisation and what we do".

Wrong.

Sadly, most people don't care one iota about your organisation and they almost certainly wont "want to find out more about it" until the day they need it. Then they don't want to know about it either, they just want help to do something that is suddenly important to them. What's more they are under stress, they are possibly angry or afraid and their ability to learn is severely restricted.

A significant part of the problem is that too many of us see our websites as some kind of media channel, like brochures, adverts etc. If we thought of them as tools to get stuff done and fiocused on what those tasks might be for the people we serve, website might be a lot sinpler for users.

How about your site? Is it a tool for doing something, or a way to "present your organisation to the world"? How's it working out? Comments open.

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