Monthly Archives: January 2008

Usability On Emails, Lufthansa Example

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Email notifications are an important part of a website, affecting usability and the whole user experience. They should be clear, short and shouldn’t look like spam.

"A better approach would be to put the important information on top…"

Emails are part of the service and users use them for later reference. One example is the messages sent by online ticket reservation systems.

 

Lufthansa Confirmation Email

 

Lufthansa, the airline, sends confirmation emails that are almost worthless, just because a little detail. The message itself, the characters on it, doesn’t deliver important information for the user. On the other side, the important information is on a PDF document that can not be scanned by most email clients.

That means that emails will be very difficult to find once they are archived. The email subject doesn’t help either. A better approach would be to put the important information on top of the email body and subject! See how other airline is doing it better, read the article here.

 

Site Maps Help Users, Design Examples

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Site maps can make users’ life easier in many situations, for example when they look for specific information they don’t find on the homepage.

"The site map is an alternative way of navigation…"

A good website design should have a site map and a link to it in a visible location. The site map is an alternative way of navigation, often use as a last resource. One possible approach is to organize it by categories representing group of products, but there are many solutions that would work fine.

Apple.com has a well design site map, the link to it is at the bottom of the homepage:

Apple.com Site Map

 

EBay has an extended site map and the link to it it’s very visible, at the top right corner:

Ebay Site Map

 

Mozilla.com does not pass this usability test as they don’t provide a site map (or maybe I can’t find it, can you?).

 

Mozilla.com without site map

 

Designing For The Biggest Group Of Users

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Your website design should represent the majority of users, that means, always make bigger what it’s important for your target customers. Use at least 90 % of the homepage real estate to give information to your biggest user group.

"Let the smallest group of visitors investigate by themselves…"

Specially the homepage should contemplate this rule. Let the smallest group of visitors investigate by themselves and look for the information they need.

For example HP makes the "Home & Home Office" section bigger than others. Doing this they improve the user experience of the biggest customer group.

HP Homepage

 

3M places the links for job applicants and investors at the bottom of the homepage. It’s not that they are not important, it’s that they represent a small group of users.

 

3M Homepage