

Small but significant usability sins that websites should never commit - pascal07
http://www.elezea.com/2012/09/usability-sins/

======
MBlume
If I'm entering a credit card number, let me type the fucking spaces. Use JS
to trim them before they hit the server if you have to. I once used a site
that had JS specifically to prevent me from typing a space, and it was
_infuriating_ , because exactly the same amount of engineering effort could
have gone into just letting me type it the way I wanted to.

~~~
lazugod
Is it really important to type the delimiter? Or just to have it appear
onscreen while typing?

~~~
adamzochowski
Cards usually have the numbers in a groups of 4 digits. When typing into a
field let me type in same groups of 4 digits. It is easier to see that there
are 4 groups of 4 digits each, as opposed to counting a blur of 16 digits.

------
bunderbunder
> Don’t open links in new browser tabs. Tabbed browsing is for advanced users.
> If you open a page in a new tab, most users will get lost. . .

And many of the advanced ones will still get irritated. I can manage my own
tabs, TYVM, and don't appreciate it when web designers presumptuously attempt
to decide for me when I do and do not want a page to open in a new one.

~~~
rfurmani
Very true, this is especially a bugbear of mine when browsing on iPhone. All
too often I have eight tabs open that I'm meaning to get back to. Then I click
on a link (or accidentally click an ad) and my heart lurches as the link opens
a new tab, so Safari very helpfully destroys my oldest tab and I lose whatever
was there. I've noticed quite consistently that this behavior comes with sites
that just want to keep you on there, so they open external links in a new tab,
usability be damned.

~~~
pronoiac
I hate that too, and here's a way to get that tab back: wait for the new page
to load, and then the back button works, taking to back to the not-exactly-
overwritten page.

~~~
rfurmani
I think that works if you follow a link from another app, but not if it is a
popup from safari? Or maybe they changed this in ios 5

------
bluetidepro
I strongly disagree with some of these from the user feedback I've always
heard. Yes, I'm sure target audience matters on some of the points but come
on, "Most users don’t know what FAQ stands for". That's just ridiculous and
you provide no evidence to support this claim. I feel like these "sins" are
major shots in the dark with no real studies to back up such big claims.

~~~
fusiongyro
His point about FAQs being out-of-context is completely valid. Every page on
CenturyLink's site links to a help page that (IIRC) has a random mishmash of
questions about billing, setup, technical support and whatnot. It would be
much better to answer billing questions on the billing page and technical
questions on the support page, and so forth.

~~~
bluetidepro
I can agree in that context but the author specifically says "Most users don’t
know what FAQ stands for", which I disagree with. But to what you mean, yes,
the way FAQ's should be presented may vary, depending on the site.

~~~
masterzora
It definitely depends on your audience but the general non-tech audience
probably doesn't know what "FAQ" stands for on average. In fact, most of the
things you tech for granted among a tech-savvy audience disappear if you are
targeting an audience that includes a non-trivial non-tech segment.

Source: Working at a startup with a wide audience. The email consisting only
of the subject line "WHAT IS PASSWORD" was not the least-savvy email received.

~~~
think-large
This sort of thing is very dependent on a person's age too.

I know a lot of my peers would know what FAQ means and what a password is.
Even some of the "less" tech savvy people. But late adopters who are still
using 10 year old PCs usually don't know.

Before I hear claims of ageism, it is just a fact that a higher percentage of
the older generations don't know how to use computers. It isn't ALL of them
but they didn't have the benefit of growing up with computers as a tool, to
the point where they become second nature.

------
justincpollard
This article was written to express findings of one study ("two days running
usability tests") with specific products ("websites that sell financial
products like life cover, funeral policies, and annuities") for a specific
target market ("lower-income users who access the Internet at least once a day
on a desktop at home or work, or on their phones").

Take the information with a grain of salt. It's a positive thing to think
about how a user outside of the early adopter cohort will use a product. Maybe
not right at first, but at least later on when your company outgrows
(hopefully) its first users.

------
snitzr
Always know your audience. Hacker News readers are not most users and you
won't always be designing for them. You wouldn't believe what hangs up most
users unless you saw it yourself. This is true for the web as well as all
devices. Forgo testing with real users and prepare for a high bounce rate.

------
ISV_Damocles
Disagree with the "never" highlight rows in a table. If you have a number-
heavy table with lots of rows and columns, it's the perfect way to help users
read the data shown.

Of course, this sort of thing is more common on intranet sites, not exposed to
the general public, so it's simply "Know Your Audience", as usual.

~~~
masterzora
That sort of highlighting almost never should be relegated to a mouseover
event. Besides the issue mentioned in the article, if the only way to reliably
read a row of data is for it to be highlighted then highlight-on-mouseover
makes it a bitch to read more than one row on a table.

------
peeters
These are _far_ to presumptive to be general truths. You mean to tell me that
the percentage of (even first-time) visitors to Hacker News that know what
PDFs and FAQs are is less than 99%?

Also where is your data coming from in the first place? Are your claims based
on any non-anecdotal evidence?

~~~
fromhet
In the article, OP explains that they (there should be a gender neutral
singular pronoun in english) are in middle of analyzing data from a certain
income group who are used to getting around the web, who handle both desktops
and phones. It's in the first or second paragraph!

~~~
masterzora
_(there should be a gender neutral singular pronoun in english)_

There are a number of attempts at this but I've found Spivak pronouns
(specifically the Elverson set) to be a particularly elegant solution. The
easiest description is "the 'they'-form pronouns without the 'th'". Thus, your
first sentence would become "In the article, OP explains that ey ([...]) are
in middle of analyzing data from a certain income group who are used to
getting around the web, who handle both desktops and phones."

Anecdotally, I've found most people seem to understand what I'm saying online
and offline people either understand me or think I'm saying "they" and
understand my point anyway. Plus, this pronoun set sounds more natural than
other constructions and is easy to remember since it's keyed to a set you
already know.

~~~
fromhet
Thank you very much, I'll start using this! Very elegant solution, indeed.

------
dorkrawk
While these sins are good things to be thinking about when building a site
lists like this can be dangerous if they cause people to make a fundamental
error; assuming you know what "most users" or the "average user" know or want
without actually doing some basic usability/UX testing.

One of the most important things to consider when thinking about usability/UX
is that if you built it then you're not a good authority on what it's like to
use it.

------
alanctgardner2
I would add not using the relevant cursor for things that are clickable. Its
not perfect ( especially for mobile), but its a huge hint.

------
adambratt
> Don’t open links in new browser tabs

I agree that this can be confusing, but it's helpful for external links. I'd
rather have a user be confused for a minute than have them completely forget
about my website. Not to mention, when you close the new tab you'll probably
end up looking at the tab containing my site again. At the end of the day,
it's a usability vs visibility tradeoff.

> Don't have an FAQ page

Do you really think most users don't know what a FAQ is? Unless your target
audience is 12 year olds I really doubt this is true. I do agree though that
having a separate page for your FAQ means your workflow is lacking the proper
information users are looking for.

> Don’t give table rows highlighting mouse-overs if the rows aren’t clickable

Totally agree. I think this is the biggest thing Twitter bootstrap gets wrong.
Sure it's easier for lining up a row, but if you use zebra striping that won't
be an issue.

~~~
fusiongyro
When you say "I'd rather have a user be confused for a minute than have them
completely forget about my website" you're essentially saying that you'd
rather the user have an unpleasant memory of you than no memory at all. That
seems like a pretty shallow notion of branding. I'll never forget
ExpertsExchange, it doesn't mean I ever wish I still had to visit it.

------
smoyer
Are there really only five? I think you could write a book ;)

------
zoowar
I'd like to add: Don't reprogram the command sequence for browser page search
to a site specific search bar.

~~~
yread
Even Google does that the search box is always in focus so when you try to
search Opera's '.' it doesn't work. I hate reaching for ctrl...

------
think-large
Another important thing to consider is your target audience. If you are
designing a site like github that targets developers then you can probably
assume they know what a FAQ page is.

I think that overall, this article isn't highlighting sins, but more pet-
peeves. I get annoyed by some of these things as well and I think good website
designs should incorporate better options. But unless you present me with a
study that is broken down by generation on who doesn't know what a FAQ is I'm
going to have to throw the BS flag here.

------
adam-a
> Don’t open links in new browser tabs

> Tabbed browsing is for advanced users. If you open a page in a new tab, most
> users will get lost

This is the default behaviour for Twitter and Facebook, two of the biggest
sites on the net. It is arguably the biggest reason why FF originally won
market share over IE. And Chrome centres it's whole UI around tabs.

Maybe for certain audiences this is still good advice but I don't think it is
a truism anymore.

------
Semiapies
This is an interesting post (the required-field point in particular), but I
think I'll make the opposite of the usual HN page-usability complaint. Unlike
a lot of blog posts I've looked at today, this design is clean, readable, and
doesn't try to give me a headache with low-contrast text.

It's a pleasure _not_ to have to hit Readable for once.

------
matthewlyle
There's a lot of positing here. To assume the "average user" doesn't
understand what browser tabs, PDFs, and FAQs are seems ... odd. Now these may
or may not be fine tips, but they are not recommendations based on best
practices or any research that I can tell. If they are, I'd be interested in
seeing it.

~~~
pascal07
As mentioned in the post, these are findings based on usability testing -
direct observational research.

------
kposehn
The one about highlighted table rows makes total sense.

------
its_so_on
the asterisk. even after 10 years of this (or is it 15?) i still look for the
footnote :(

... made worse by the fact that sometimes there is one!

