To scroll or not to scroll?
By Addison Hall / Posted Tuesday, March 23, 2010
People generally have strong opinions about scrolling on websites. Not so long ago it was nearly a sin to design an interface that required scrolling (how long is long in web years?). Today, however, I don’t think twice about placing content “below the fold.” I certainly encourage positioning the most crucial information in the upper portion of the design, but scrolling is easy—it’s “browsable.”
Mighty web usability expert Jacob Nielson has just released an article that suggests while scrolling is acceptable, it doesn't excuse website owners from prioritizing content. He has even included some interesting eye-tracking studies. Cool.
Read Scrolling and Attention.
User testing ain’t rocket surgery
By Addison Hall / Posted Tuesday, March 09, 2010
I just finished listening to a great interview with usability expert Steve Krug over at Boagworld. Mr. Krug wrote one of my favorite books on website usability, Don’t Make Me Think, and is latest, Rocket Surgery Made Easy, appears to be a nice follow-up. His main point is that productive user-testing doesn’t have to be anything complicated—it can be a simple 15-minute observation with two or three people.
YouTube and HTML5
By Addison Hall / Posted Friday, February 05, 2010
Adobe Flash is the current champion of online video (although I believe Netflix uses Microsoft’s Silverlight), but YouTube is showing us that things may change in the near future. HTML5 supports video without any plugins—it only requires that your browser support HTML5. This is really cool. While I do love Flash and all it can do, I’m all for a high-quality, free alternative to presenting media online. Finally, I’m beginning to get excited about the next generation of HTML.
Blog? Oh, yeah. I have a blog.
By Addison Hall / Posted Friday, January 15, 2010
Why do I constantly have to remind myself that being busy is a good thing? Should I really be worried that this website hasn’t been updated since August of 2009? Nope, not one bit. Why? I have work coming out of my ears and that is way more important than what my next blog post should be. So, is it important to blog and tweet and Facebook? Sure it is—when you have time. But if you’re overflowing with work, don’t sweat it. Just be thankful!
Sometimes simple is best
By Addison Hall / Posted Monday, August 17, 2009
I have often avoided fancy effects and such in favor of simplicity. My list of compatibility issues does not need one more addition to make development more complicated. The question that always arises is, “does the effect enhance the site enough to justify more time and money?” Just lately I was reminded again that the answer is often “no”—sometimes simple is best.
Starting with fancy
While working on the new Omni product page for Baron Services, I thought it a perfect candidate for the “lightbox” effect—you know, the screen goes dark and a small, inset window appears with an enlarged image, video, or other content. I set up the page and it was beautiful. It even tested well in all the major browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer (versions 6 through 8), Safari, and Opera. However, one person at Baron Services was having trouble, and I could not reproduce the issue.
Simple solution
It turned out that the anomaly was Internet Explorer 8 running on 64-bit Windows Vista, and I could not figure out what was going wrong (I don’t have 64-bit Windows Vista to test). We had two choices: spend time and money trying to make the “fancy” version work, or drop back to a simplified, yet usable version in favor of wider compatibility. It was an easy decision—simple won by far, and it was not only a matter of budget. We needed to get a working version out quickly, so time was an important factor as well.
The final version incorporates a simple browser pop-up window so that the user still gets the feeling that they do not really leave the page, much like lightbox. No, it’s not quite as fancy, but it works and it launched on time and within budget. That makes both the users and my client happy.