Preface

A few weeks ago, I asked Donald Norman if he would answer some questions for a WebWord.com interview. He was kind enough to say yes. I asked Don several web usability questions, but he told me that he was not an expert on web sites -- that is the domain of Jakob Nielsen. The thing I like most about this interview is that he makes you think beyond web usability. Mark Hurst of Creative Good did the same thing when I interviewed him. While usability is important, it isn't everything. Not by a long shot.  -- John S. Rhodes

Inside the Head of a User

How do people know what to do on a web site? That is, what drives their actions? Why do they click? What drives them to interact with the site? 

Let me translate that into the more general question; How do people know what to do in any situation? If it is familiar, well, you can remember. It is the novel cases that are of particular interest. 

Information exists both in the head and in the world. If it isn't in the head, the information better be in the world. That is why in my book POET (The Psychology of Everyday Things -- also sold in paperback as The Design of Everyday Things), I argued that one had to use perceptual cues to let people know how to act. Flat plates on doors allow only one activity: pushing. So if a door has a flat plate, it doesn't need an instruction manual in the form of a sign that says "push." 

Consider a novel situation, how does one know what to do? Answer: you hope the information is in the world. Part of this can be handled through convention. We navigate websites because there is a convention that links are underlined and in color. This is a pretty crappy convention because it is ugly, unaesthetic. All those underlines and colors ruin the page layout. But one dare not change it because millions of people have come to rely upon this for navigation. 

Web pages can describe what each item does. So on the web, we know what to do by a combination of convention and description. Alas, most sites flaunt convention and are bad at description. So then, how do we know what to do? Answer: we don't. As Jakob says, that is why the majority of uses of the web result in failure. 

Navigation on web pages is horrible because unless the designer understands human-centered design (and most do not), there's no hint of what you will find when you click on a link. You click, you wait endless seconds for the handshaking and then the download. And then you see you are in the wrong place. Worse, you get a long download and no useful information at all -- you have to click even further to find out anything. By the time you get enough information to see that this is not what you wanted, you are far from where you started. When that happens to me, I say the hell with it and leave. 

Similarly, how much of a user's experience is driven by marketing? By branding? By ease of use? 

Marketing is what gets you to try the thing in the first place. But once you are at that point, it is replaced by the true experience of the site or product. Ease of use is a small part: providing the desired functionality is what really matters. 

Branding is a part of marketing: a brand promises a certain level of quality and reliability and support. It is what gets you there in the first place. And then the experience you have either helps build the brand or helps destroy it. 

Usability, Marketing, and Buying

How is customer loyalty related to usability?

Hardly at all. Sad, but true. people forget usability. 

Similarly, is usability "more powerful" than marketing in getting a user to make a purchase? 

It plays remarkably little role. 

Actually, usability is much more important on websites than with physical products. On a web, if the site is unusable, you just leave. 

It is common knowledge that shopping carts are often abandoned by web users. What is the core difference between making a buying decision and actually making a purchase? How does usability play a role? 

Why do you keep harping on usability? Usability is always secondary. It's never the most important thing about an experience. I will accept poor usability if I get what I need, if the total experience is great. I will reject perfect usability if I am not rewarded with a useful, engaging experience. 

Why abandon shopping carts? Why not. Most sites make it easy to fill a cart, but difficult to complete the purchase. One has to fill in all sorts of information that has nothing to do with the purchase. Then there are often hidden charges, occasionally revealed only at the end of the purchase cycle. Or one might be told the item is not in stock only at the very end. With all that hassle, why bother? 

And in many sites, it is difficult to do comparisons of items, so I sometimes use the shopping cart as placeholders even though I have no intention of buying. Put in the three items I am trying to compare so I can remember them. Then look them over and decide to go elsewhere. 

Why do we abandon shopping carts? Because the website is so poorly done that either we use the shopping cart for things other than shopping or because the final purchasing steps are so onerous we are driven away. 

What a shame -- once people have loaded up a shopping cart, they are 80% of the way to a sale. It is pure stupidity that a website then loses the sale. 

A Spoon and a Web Page

A spoon is very easy to use. This holds true for just about every person I know. Do you think it will ever be possible to make a web site as easy to use as a spoon? 

Here we go on usability again. A spoon is not particularly easy to use. Ever teach a baby how to use a spoon? It takes months  -- years. Ever try to help an elderly person to use a spoon? Why do you think it is easy? 

People love to call things like pencils and spoons "intuitive." Let's make everything intuitive, they say. Nonsense! Things that are intuitive are there because we spent several years of practice learning how to use them so that now, they do not require conscious effort. And so we say it is intuitive. There is nothing the matter with having to learn how to do something. But having learned once, you should never have to learn again. 

What I hate about many products, and most software, and most websites, is that I have to keep relearning. The steps are so obscure, so illogical, so lacking any clean conceptual model, that each time one uses it's a new challenge. Well, a plague on that. 

As for spoons. Well, I prefer a spoon to a fork: I often use spoons where etiquette says 'fork" (eating peas, for example). But if given a choice for things like soup, I prefer not to use a spoon. Spoons are hard to use properly. They drip. I prefer Japanese soup bowls where you just hold the bowl to the mouth and sip -- no messy, dripping spoon required. 

I would hope that websites are easier to use than spoons. No years of learning, no dripping, no cleanup afterwards. And no having to wash it out or worry about dirt and germs. 

Don, I admit that my spoon-as-a-web-site metaphor is rather weak. So, what is the best analogy? What should we compare to web sites? 

The best thing to compare to a website is a website. Analogies are just that -- an analogy. If you want to study the real thing, go directly to life. Ignore analogies. (Same with design. Those who think that one should use metaphors in design are destined to produce crappy designs.) 

Wrap Up

What exciting things are you working on right now? What are your goals for the next few years? 

The next big thing is education. Going to college is fine if you are young, if you are not employed, if you have the time and money. But what about after you are employed, or if you can't move to a college town, or if you can't afford the tuition and living expenses? Moreover, formal schooling is the first third of your life -- what about the other two thirds? 

The Internet makes distance education possible. This is the next big thing -- lifelong education. Education for those who can't afford the time or money to go to school. Education when you need it, not when it is convenient for the school or professor. 

And education tuned to real needs, not to some professors pet beliefs. Courses that last as long as they need to, not the artificial 10 or 15 week cycle that schools use because this simplifies scheduling the buildings or teachers. And courses that start instantaneously, not once a year. 

But distance education is not classroom education at a distance. It has to be done very very differently. 

The good distance education companies -- such as mine (UNext.com) -- will offer benefits not available today. And they are apt to change all of education.

Thanks Don. This was excellent.

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