1 You'd think it's obvious...

but it’s not. Thank you Nick for this wonderful article. As web designers we pratically think in html and css, but we sometimes forget that those markup languages are created for one and only one purpose: to provide the right kind of information to the right kind of people. Content is far more important than colours and shapes.

I will certainly read your article again when I start developing a new website, to make sure my visitors get the information they want.

Thanks!

posted at 05:20 am on February 20, 2004 by Peter De Bouvere

2 Dell?

Does anyone else think that Dell’s website is cumbersome at best? If I go to their site looking for drivers, I have to click on “Support” and then tell them what sort of a users I am (Home, Business, Educational). Then I have to log in (couldn’t I have logged in first? then it could remember what sort of a user I am). Then I have to enter a service tag for the system that I want drivers for, but even though I’ve logged in, the site doesn’t remember what systems I own.

Dell may be user-centric, whatever that means, but I think they’ve got a lot to learn about usability.

posted at 05:39 am on February 20, 2004 by Stewart Rosenberger

3 Brothers in design

I’m kinda with Stewart on this, the site is great for when you don’t know what you want and fall into a broad demographic, but once you want something specific things can get messy.

And the thing about clear and simple navigation is that it can breed familiarity and contempt.
www.dell.com
www.panasonic.com
Separated at birth?

posted at 06:04 am on February 20, 2004 by Andy Quin

4 although...

the meat of what Nick is saying is absolutely fundamental – let your users know what they can do and how you can help.

posted at 06:06 am on February 20, 2004 by Andy Quin

5 Great article

I enjoyed the reading and it reminds of a lot of fundamentals. I like those articles. I should make it sticky somewhere on my computer. I’m keeping it in my mind. Oh, by the way date in the rss is wrong (03 instead of 04).

posted at 06:12 am on February 20, 2004 by Vanhalle Jean-Christophe

6 Gateway

I agree with Stewart. Dell’s site is totally cumbersome. If I had to choose a PC site which separates Home and Business well, it would be gateway.com.

posted at 06:59 am on February 20, 2004 by sonny

7 Dell.com is a bad exaple

Dell.com is one of the least user friendly sites one could come up with. It’s only good for one type of person; the one that has no idea what they need.

posted at 07:16 am on February 20, 2004 by Timen Swijtink

8 PS

I don’t mean to be a basher but Microsoft’s front page has over 70 links. I don’t know about you but that’s what I call a link dump.

The rest of your article is very enlightening.

posted at 07:22 am on February 20, 2004 by Timen Swijtink

9 re: although

I agree with Andy. The substance of this article is spot-on, although the example sites aren’t ones I would have chosen, for reasons already stated by other folks in this forum.

I’d also like to say I’m glad to see ALA running articles like this one, in addition to its more staple diet of cutting-edge CSS, etc.

Don’t get me wrong. I relish the cutting-edge standards based stuff. But I also appreciate it when ALA runs good solid material on best practices.

“Helping Visitors” qualifies as the kind of piece I can show colleagues and clients instead of arguing with them when they want to use menu labels that only make sense to stakeholders.

I appreciate anything well written and authoritative that I can put in front of argumentative clients … and save my breath for other battles. :)

posted at 07:40 am on February 20, 2004 by sanchez

10 Self referential loop.

It strikes me that while digging through your logs may be the simplest way to find the language your customers use, it’s not the best.

Logically, you are only going to find terms you are already using, as that’s how they found you in the search engine in the first place. If you’re totally off-base in your language, visitors will never arrive at your site at all.

posted at 07:53 am on February 20, 2004 by Tim Lang

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