When Google first created its beta (first draft) home page and set up a test to see how well it would work, there was a problem.

“[Our beta testers] would sit in front of the Google screen for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, a minute…Google was perplexed.”

Interested in what the problem was and how easily it was fixed? Read the article:

What You Never Noticed About Google

Read more . . .

Visitors to your website don’t come just to look at your design and to figure out how to get all your fancy special effects to work. They come with questions they want answered. Your job is to make that information that they seek as easy to find as possible. Anything that stands in the way of your visitor finding out what they want to know quickly and simply makes your website a nightmare to use.

Smashing Magazine has a list of 10 Usability Nightmares you should be aware of with examples from real sites. There is also a list of 8 usability checkpoints:

1. Don’t use pop-ups.
2. Don’t change users’ window size.
3. Don’t use too-small font sizes.
4. Don’t have unclear link text.
5. Don’t have dead links.
6. Have at most one animation per page.
7. Make it easy to contact you.
8. Make links open in the same window.

Do you agree with the article? Do you know of any other usability nightmares that they missed?

10 Usability Nightmares You Should Be Aware Of ~ Smashing Magazine

On a side note, comment #142 for this article was very amusing:

“I think that every designer should design for their grandma. If she can get around the site, only then can you pat yourself on the back. I have had customers that when I said click on the link, they actually picked up the mouse, put it on the screen and then clicked.”

Oh, dear.