Design vs Art Blog

Breadcrumbs are use to tell users where they are, just showing the path to the home page. Yes, the word comes from the fairy tales, more precisely Hansel and Gretel, in which these two poor children are left alone in the forest. Then they left a trail back home of breadcrumbs but the birds eat their trail and they get lost. Without breadcrumbs your users will be lost in the forest!

A trail of links is the 21st century usability version of Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs trail. They are not difficult to understand but there are a few things to keep in mind. For example, make clear what they are, use the words “You are here” like Wal-Mart does in it’s site.

Wal-Mart also makes the last words to look different making the user to notice that she is there. On the other hand, Shopping.com uses the words “Back to”, which is not that bad but why would you use something that might confuse users when the “You are here” works so good?

Another mistake of Shopping.com is not to make the last words to look different. Their design is just fine, it could be better though.

Breadcrumbs could be a little bit confusing if they are not implemented properly. For example, msnbc is not making a 100% good job in their already messy site. If you click on the left side menu item “Travel”, then “News”, the breadcrumbs show you as last selection “Travel News”, a selection that actually does not exist. This word-game is unnecessary and could confuse users.

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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice . I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.

Popularity: 11% [?]

User experience could be so much improved if you make the login process easy and if your site remember users once they registered. If for security reasons you want your users to login every single time they go to your site, make the login process easy and place it in a prominent location, if possible in the home page. Yahoo!, for example, is doing it very good.

Yahoo! asks users to sign in to get access to all the services they offer and gives the possibility to keep signed in, so users don’t have to go through the process each time. This is great for users but also for Yahoo! as it allows them to show users personalized content as soon as they reach the Yahoo! home page.

It’s sad for me to accept the fact that I have to use emusic, the music download service that I love, as a bad usability example. Service in general is quite good but the login process is horrible, even more, I have read in forums that users have been complaining for some time already.

The specific problem is that users go to the emusic site to, off course, download music, and to do that they are required to log in every single time the user reaches the site. To make the whole thing more complicated, the site is too silly to remember you.

Also, a login box in the home page could make user’s life easier. Come on emusic, let customers to stay logged in, they will like it, this is more common sense than a design pattern.

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Disclaimer: with this kind of article I want to point out usability and interface problems some sites could have. Please do not take this as an attack, take it as a free advice. I would like to make clear that this design problems could happen for many reasons, including lack of time or money.

Popularity: 15% [?]