And Web 1.0 Begat Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is a buzzword for sure, and it’s also a style. It goes deeper than these, however. We have gained significant knowledge and experience in creating content for the web as a mass communication medium.

We have learned:

Web 1.0, arguably, answered some of these dilemmas. Search engines worked on turning data to usable information. Desktop-based What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) web page editors made content production for the web feasible for non-techies. Animated gif files and Flash took the dullness out of hand-coded HTML pages.

Since then, we’ve learned better ways of visually communicating information, improving user experience, and implementing this knowledge is the impetus for technological advances. These advances attempt to organize information as fast, as efficiently and as naturally as possible.

Web 2.0 offers blogging software that allows quick and easy creation of entire websites and tagging systems to organize that content. CSS versions 2 and 3 provide very flexible text and layout formatting that is bringing web-based content production abilities up to par with centuries of advancements seen in the print industry.

Social networks help people find information by reading others’ suggestions as well as assist in creating content and a web-identity.

Advertisements on web sites are tracked, are available in multiple formats and are intelligently displayed based on numerous visitor-based metrics instead of completely random banner ads.

Web 2.0 evolved out of various needs of Web 1.0 users, and these Web 2.0 optimizations have been applied throughout the Internet around the time when people started “getting it,” making Web 2.0 appear to be a style. But more than that, Web 2.0 is a thought process and an ideal.

Have you ever considered optimizing the usability of your site-search? If so, first consider why visitors would use the search box on your site. I can see two general reasons why they would use it:

1. Right when the visitor gets the urge to find some content, they have already decided that using a site-search, opposed to clicking and reading around, will find that content faster.
2. The user tried reading around and clicking to find that content, but gave up because they couldn’t find that content (fast enough) so they started using the site’s search feature.

There are three types of visitors when it comes to site search: search-dominant, browse-dominate and a blend of the two. Search-dominant users think they can get better results faster from searching the site. The fact that visitors have less time to look through all the potential websites to which Google points them and the ever-increasing amount of content in them supports why this type of visitor is becoming more prevalent all the time. The second visitor type is probably motivated to click and read though a site more than searching because they know where to find the content and think they can do so fast enough for their needs. Maybe they value the experience of exploring or perhaps they’re just ‘Feeling Lucky.’ The third type probably thinks they can find some content faster using a site-search and other content faster by browsing.

Sometimes, when new users come to your site, they’ll use the search feature, and in becoming familiar with the navigation on the pages to which your site-search directs them, they will become better at knowing where to find content on your site in the future. Therefore, returning users may use the site’s search feature less than new users. This probably means that your site’s overall usability and information architecture is effective.

My colleague, Joe, blogged about an increasing phenomenon in which users who have arrived on your site from search engines will then use your site’s search box, but will often search for terms so broad, it defies your understanding. He said that users may be using more precise (‘long-tail’) searches on Google to find your site and using broad search terms once on your site because they expect that it’s Google that needs the more precise search term. This makes sense because Google has billions of pages in its index and your site may only have 50 total pages.

In order to optimize the usability of your site-search, you have to get in the visitors’ heads. Sometime this is extremely difficult. This difficulty can be overcome, however, by reading usability reports and any psychological reports remotely related to this subject.

So, when you consider site-search optimization, realize that search engine traffic to your site (SEO), your own site-search and your site’s navigation are all inter-related. When you adjust one of these items, another one may be have to be adjusted in order to give your site the best usability possible.

Consider these suggestions:

• Assume the user may want to use site-search on your site, especially if it’s any larger than a typical ‘brochure site.’ Therefore, be conscious of this and provide this feature.
• Always seek to create a better site-search experience for your users by comparing the terms searched for against the results your website returns. Secondly, since you know the content of your website well, analysis of site-search usability will probably be much more reliable if you use small-group testing methods composed of those not familiar with your site.
• Learn and use your analytics services.
• Don’t assume that all visitors arrive on your site from the home page. Also, don’t assume that your home page receives the most traffic (you can validate this for your site using analytics services). Place your search box on every page, in a standard location (usually top right or top center) and make the search box stand out some way.
• Always analyze your site-search analytics (and adjust your site as necessary): compare percentages of visitors that use site-search with those who do not; see if visitors are leaving your site right after they see the search results, or if they stay, how long they stay; compare the amount of pages site-search users view (known as depth) with that of the site’s visitors’ average depth to see if your entire site needs work or the just site-search’s relevancy of results needs your attention. Feel free to come up with additional areas of site-search usability analysis.

I would like to share a few usability resources I have found that can quickly get you on your way to understanding your visitors and employing Best Practices for usability design.

www.useit.com
Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a patent holder and renowned usability guru. You can find invaluable reports as well as all the content from his free AlertBox newsletter.

Don’t Make Me Think (Book)
This book provides an easy to follow, non-technical, yet revealing perspective into what goes on in visitors’ minds when they see your site, from the first impressionable seconds to the interaction with navigation elements minutes later. It details many case studies and guides you with Best Practices for designing for visitors so that you won’t have to teach them to use your site–they’ll know instinctively and will not have to think. It’s a short, but thought-provoking read with suggestions that you will soon want to implement.

www.uxmatters.com
This organization produces an e-zine about usability and design issues. Some of the content is a theoretical, but you can take something away from every article. This site contains a glossary of usability-related terms and abbreviations, conference reviews and access to archived articles. Though they have been around for just two years, there is a lot of useful content.

www.usability.gov
See your tax dollars at work. Uncle Sam has compiled research and guidelines for developing usable web sites. They include topics on everything from planning to designing to testing and refining your website. You can also find newsletters, articles and events related to site usability. They also sell their Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines book, which includes contributions from ‘experts from across government, industry, and academia.’

www.challishodge.com
A blogger with a large archive talks about ‘the user experience, design and strategy’ while applying news of current events in a broad range of topics from art to nanotechnology to Word of Mouth Marketing. In addition to the informative and interesting blog posts, lists of organizations, other blog sites, books and resources can also be found.

www.poynterextra.org/eyetrack2004/index.htm
Poynter Institute runs tests on visitors’ eye movement behavior while reading multimedia and news-related websites. This site, as well as http://eyetrack.poynter.org/, gathers the findings and helps you understand what design decisions can help your site visitors look, and then hopefully click, where you want them to. Though this information is specifically pertaining to news websites, you should be able to apply the findings about images, font size and information recall to your design.

www.webstyleguide.com
Originally published by Yale University, Webstyleguide.com presents a logical, prioritized approach to Best Practices in web design with an emphasis on user-centered design. The guidelines start with a discussion on the design process and design goals, and continue with interface, site and page design, and then delves into visual elements and editorial style.

psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/default.htm
This resource’s goal is to assist you in designing a website for user, and does so by combining and presenting knowledge gained from many researchers on human interaction with interfaces. The Software Usability Research Laboratory, the laboratory responsible for this site’s content, includes research from the previously mentioned Poynter University and Neilson. In this resource, along with its sister site, surl.org, much of the text is supported by parenthetical notations so you can find the original publication of a researcher’s findings. Though this site was last updated in March 2003, and some of the suggestions are no longer in use, surl.org’s newsletter is current as of July 2007.