Usability Question
Feb. 18th, 2009 03:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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kproche or anyone else who has worked on the 2009 World Fantasy Con web site, you're ineligible for this question because you already know the answer.
If you wanted to find you whether you were a member of the 2009 WFC and you went to the convention's web site, where do you think you would find this information, if anywhere? If you can't figure it out, what would you suggest changing to make it easier to find? Update: To do this in the spirit intended, I ask that you don't look at the comments until after at least trying with or without the hints below. The comments essentially give the game away, and I'm trying to learn something.
Hint 1: I assure you that the membership list is on the web site, and it is linked from one of the pages that is linked to the top level; that is, if you are at the home page, you're only two clicks away from it.
Hint 2: When you click on some of the menu items, a second level of menus will appear below the first level if there is more information available.
The underlying issue is that if you label the section "Membership" then people will ask (and they have) "How do I register to attend?" or "How much does the convention cost after I've bought my membership?" or "Why do I have to buy a membership when I only want to attend?" or something like that. If you label it "Registration" (which is what I did after getting those questions too many times), you get people asking "I can't find anything on your web site about membership." And if you label it "Registration/Membership," you use up too much real estate and probably confuse both groups of people.
Some people solve this by linking everything from the home page, but that turns the home page into a sea of nothing but links, and it causes a lot of people's eyes to glaze over. I prefer a heirarchical style, but it's not good for people who don't see logical relationships between the subject headings and the items under that subject.
My basic problem is that I want to make everyone happy, and I think it's impossible to do that because of the significantly different ways that people look at information.
kproche or anyone else who has worked on the 2009 World Fantasy Con web site, you're ineligible for this question because you already know the answer.If you wanted to find you whether you were a member of the 2009 WFC and you went to the convention's web site, where do you think you would find this information, if anywhere? If you can't figure it out, what would you suggest changing to make it easier to find? Update: To do this in the spirit intended, I ask that you don't look at the comments until after at least trying with or without the hints below. The comments essentially give the game away, and I'm trying to learn something.
Hint 1: I assure you that the membership list is on the web site, and it is linked from one of the pages that is linked to the top level; that is, if you are at the home page, you're only two clicks away from it.
Hint 2: When you click on some of the menu items, a second level of menus will appear below the first level if there is more information available.
The underlying issue is that if you label the section "Membership" then people will ask (and they have) "How do I register to attend?" or "How much does the convention cost after I've bought my membership?" or "Why do I have to buy a membership when I only want to attend?" or something like that. If you label it "Registration" (which is what I did after getting those questions too many times), you get people asking "I can't find anything on your web site about membership." And if you label it "Registration/Membership," you use up too much real estate and probably confuse both groups of people.
Some people solve this by linking everything from the home page, but that turns the home page into a sea of nothing but links, and it causes a lot of people's eyes to glaze over. I prefer a heirarchical style, but it's not good for people who don't see logical relationships between the subject headings and the items under that subject.
My basic problem is that I want to make everyone happy, and I think it's impossible to do that because of the significantly different ways that people look at information.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 02:46 am (UTC)I looked for "membership" link on the front page, finding none, I poked at both "guests" and "registration" as the only possible options.
Finding the link to membership lists under registration makes sense from the perspective that it's the only option - but from the user perspective, re-titling that menu entry to "registration and membership" would help a lot more - or having a "membership list" link all by itself if you don't like combing the two ;>
EDIT: Oh dear - I just noticed the Membership *button* - i had scrolled down to see the membership list link in the text! (and would make it either BOLDER or a more standout color - it's not as standout as it could be for those with eye issues).
no subject
Date: 2009-02-19 08:26 am (UTC)The problem with Registration/Membership is that the only way to do that would be to get rid of one of the top-level menus. The total length of menus is about as wide as we can let it get now. There's only so much space on the top level. And so far, we haven't identified any top-level menus that we're willing to remove.