Today I start a 10-part series discussing Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics. In each post I’ll discuss a topic and give examples so that you can keep your users happy go-lucky during their website adventures.
So, here we go…
Part 1: Visibility of System Status
Jakob Nielsen: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback with reasonable time.
So, what does that mean?
It means that when a user interacts with your site, they need some sort of visual cue indicating that the system is working or that what they’ve done is either correct or incorrect. There’s nothing more frustrating than clicking on a button and not getting some sort of immediate feedback or response that something is, in fact, happening.
So, what sort of feedback can you provide?
There are a lot of different types of feedback that you can provide for your users. Here are a couple of examples…
1. Displaying loading, searching or progress indicators when users when information is loading on the screen.
At times they can look more like this…
Priceline’s full page feedback tool serves multiple purposes: entertainment, confirmation and marketing, but its main task is to provide a visual cue to its users, letting them know that the site is working hard to find their results. Obviously, having a whole page dedicated to a status indicator is not always necessary, but in Priceline’s case, it provides a clean, organized transition to the next screen.
2. Letting users know immediately that what they’ve entered is either okay or not okay.
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Picnik.com does a great job of this. During their registration process, they let you know immediately if the username you’ve chosen is available or not. How annoying is it to fill out the whole registration form, hit submit and THEN find out that the username you’ve chosen isn’t available? What a time suck to sit there entering and submitting until you find something available. In Picnik’s case, you know right away.
This sort of immediate validation is just as amazing and helpful when filling out any type of form. Letting users know immediately that the email address they just entered is in the wrong format, is invaluable to their experience. Let them fix it right away and get on with their business, which may be purchasing a product from you.
There are more…These are just a couple ways that you can ensure users are “informed about what is going on” while browsing and interacting with your website.
How do you ensure that your users are comfy and confident?
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Dear Jen Walsh on August.
After reading your post I have an image of how to differentiate “Visibility of System Status” implementations on a website. Any other examples I should be aware of? Oh, and how about the other 9 Parts of the “10 Usability Heuristics”, will you still be covering them?
Regards,
Irvan.