Nielsen: Making a site easy to use should be the first priority

Hype about Web 2.0 is making web firms neglect the basics of good design, web usability guru Jakob Nielsen has said. He warned that the rush to make webpages more dynamic often meant users were badly served.

He said sites peppered with personalisation tools were in danger of resembling the “glossy but useless” sites at the height of the dotcom boom.

Research into website use shows that sites were better off getting the basics right, said Mr Nielsen.

User tests

Describing Web 2.0 as the “latest fashion”, Mr Nielsen said many sites paying attention to it were neglecting some of the principles of good design and usability established over the last decade.

Good practices include making a site easy to use, good search tools, the use of text free of jargon, usability testing and a consideration of design even before the first line of code is written.

Sadly, said Mr Nielsen, the rush to embrace Web 2.0 technology meant that many firms were turning their back on the basics.

“They should get the basics right first,” he said. “Sadly most websites do not have those primary things right.”

Most people just want to get in, get it and get out Jakob Nielsen

There was a risk, he said, of a return to the dotcom boom days when many sites, such as Boo.com, looked great but were terrible to use.

“That was just bad,” he said. “The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad in the same way, they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right.”

“The main criticism or problem is that I do not think these things are as useful as the primary things,” he said.

Well-established patterns of user involvement with sites also led Mr Nielsen to question the sense of adopting Web 2.0 technologies.

Research suggests that users of a site split into three groups. One that regularly contributes (about 1%); a second that occasionally contributes (about 9%); and a majority who almost never contribute (90%).

By definition, said Mr Nielsen, only a small number of users are likely to make significant use of all the tools a site provides.

While some sites with particular demographics, such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo, have large involved communities of users that will not hold true for all sites, he said.

“Most people just want to get in, get it and get out,” said Mr Nielsen. “For them the web is not a goal in itself. It is a tool.”

Web firms rushing to serve the small, committed minority might find they make a site far less useful to the vast majority who come to a site for a specific purpose.

Mr Nielsen also questioned championing teenage use of the web as a harbinger of what people will continue to do when they were older.

Although people in their late 30s make very different use of the web to those in their teens, Mr Nielsen expects that when those teenagers grow up the time they spend online will diminish.

“It’s because they are 20 years old that they act differently to 40-year-olds,” said Mr Nielsen.

Orginal Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6653119.stm

Tables used to be the “in” thing when it came to designing web sites.

Orginal Source from  : http://www.websolvant.com/web_view.asp?search_engine_optimisation=211

I am planning to approach the Banking Ombudsman

Credit cards are indeed sugar-coated poison.

I would like to share a horrifying experience that I had.

I use ABN AMRO Bank credit card since last 4 and a half years.

Off late I had a lot of problems related to billing, but which was sorted out.

But, just recently, I had a problem that one can never expect.

I got an SMS from ABN AMRO saying that the loan that I had applied for has been approved and processed and the Draft has already been dispatched to me.

I was shocked as I had never applied for any loan.

I immediately called up the Help Line number and spoke to a ‘Customer Service Executive’ named Prince.

He told me that it was a pre-approved loan and he will get it cancelled since I have not applied for it.

But still I received the draft. I immediately sent a mail and got a reply asking me to visit any one of the ABN AMRO branches and surrender the draft or drop it at any of the ATMs.

I sent back a reply saying that I cannot spare time to go the bank as it wasn’t my fault. The branch closest for me is the Juhu branch and I stay at Borivali.

They were also not ready to give me an acknowledgment saying that I have surrendered the Draft.

The draft is still there with me.

I am currently out of India. I am planning to approach the Banking Ombudsman as soon as I come back to India.

– Santosh Naganathan

A thief who breaks into your house at least steals honestly

I would like to share a bad experience with credit card.

After pressure from an agent, I agreed to take the ‘Free’ HDFC Bank [Get Quote] credit card. To activate the card, I made a purchase of around Rs 900 and the next day put a cheque in their drop box. Please note that the cheque was drawn on HDFC Bank (the card issuer).

I am on tour a lot, and forgot about the matter because I thought I had repaid them the next day.

Nothing happened for 3 months. Then I received a statement from the credit card division. To my original purchase, had been added all kinds of charges (late charge, finance charge, interest, etc).

When I contacted them, they told me that my cheque had bounced because the date was written wrongly.

Assuming they were right, the question arises as to why neither HDFC Bank nor HDFC Bank credit card division inform me for 3 months that the cheque had not cleared.

When I argued about this, they admitted their mistake and agreed to reverse their charges.

Next statement after 2 months showed that the charges had not been reversed. With all the new charges, I now owed them more than double of what I had purchased.

Calling their call centres, sending them mails was no help.

I should not have paid, but I don’t have the time to waste on such a minor amount. So for peace of mind, I paid up full and returned the card.

A thief who breaks into your house at least steals honestly. What do you call this kind of stealing by respectable companies?

— Amal Deobhakta

Credit cards make us a debtor for the lifetime

Actually we have painful memories with credit cards. We have borrowed Rs 52,000 from ICICI [Get Quote] card and paid the dues promptly. We have shifted our residence and we have intimated that to the concern authorities. We didn’t get the monthly statement since we didn’t borrow anything we paid the same amount, which we paid in the earlier month.

I believe that we have almost paid Rs 40,000 in respect of interest. We thought of going for a settlement and when we visited the nearby bank branch they asked us to write a letter to the head office. We have written 5 letters to the concerned office. Still we are waiting for the reply. As far as credit card is concerned, it will make us as a debtor for the lifetime.

— G Rajalakshmi

Credit cards: A beautiful tool to manage cash if used judiciously

It is wrong to compare Credit and Debit cards, as they are two different products altogether.

Debit Card is a substitute for money as your account is instantaneously debited. Hence it is as good as paying hot cash. Only advantage is you need not carry the currency notes, so from a safety perspective it is good. Credit card is a beautiful tool that offers you a credit period of 40 – 50 days if used judiciously.

Depending on the magnitude of usage you can wisely plan your cash flows. Also there is definite interest cost savings for the credit period availed and provided the bills are paid on time. Reward points are marketing gimmicks and do not play a role in deciding the usage. I would any day go in for a credit card to manage my cash flows.

— Vikram Ranganathan

Also read:

‘Credit cards are sugar-coated posion’

Disclaimer: This is a reader-driven feature. The views expressed by the readers are their own, and not that of Rediff.com. Rediff.com has not altered the material presented here and does not endorse it in any way.

Reader invite:

Dear reader do you have an opinion on the debit card vs credit card subject? What do you think is more convenient to use and what are the pros and cons of using each of them?

Share your experiences of using credit cards and/ or debit cards with getahead@rediff.co.in and we will feature the best entries right here.

Copyrighted @ http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2007/aug/13cards.htm

I wrote a small PHP script which allows you to convert your orkut scraps into a RSS feed when you provide a special URL.Well i built it for netvibes as i dont like checking orkut and netvibes homepage works really well.

Right now I have just put it online at one of my sites which im not using , so you can use it too and if you have any suggestions let me know.

Please use the URL given below and replace the {uid} with your userid.User ID is the parameter you see in the address bar when you click your scrapbook or other features in your profile.

http://www.indian-tv.com/orkut.php?uid={uid}

To access the posts of a community just post the community id in the link shown below.Community id can be seen in the address bar when you click any community.

http://www.indian-tv.com/orkut.php?cmm={community id}

Format is RSS 2.0.