¡Descarga Adapting Traditional Principles for Modern Web 2.0 Usability - Prof. Teruel y más Apuntes en PDF de Literatura inglesa solo en Docsity! Rethinking Usability for Web 2.0 and Beyond by William I. Wolff, Katherin Fitzpatrick, and Rene Youssef Introduction 1. In a groundbreaking 1983 presentation that initiated a user-centered focus on designing computing systems, Gould and Lewis suggested four main principles for designers. 2. First, designers should know who their users will be. This could be achieved by careful study of users “cognitive, behavioral, anthropomorphic, and attitudinal characteristics” . Second, designers should work with a group of suspected users at the early stages of the design of the computing system. Third, in the early stages of the design process, those users should interact with prototypes and their performance should be evaluated. Fourth, when users have problems using a computer system, designers must fix them. 3.Nielson has argued for the considerable focus on the usability of Web sites because they reverse the traditional producer-consumer relationship. Nielsen and his partners have “identified literally thousands of usability problems and developed as many guidelines for avoiding them” (xvi). These problems have been located in three main areas: page design (how individual pages are laid out), content design (how the content is written and presented), and site design (how the entire Web site is organized). 4. Much, however, has changed in the world of computer human interaction since Gould and Lewis announced the need for user- centered design. Indeed, much has changed with the Web since Nielsen and others began testing Web site usability. The primary change has been the emergence of Web 2.0, which alters how users interact with Web sites. Traditional Web sites (like cnn.com) are passive in that the user can only read the content, click a few links, and then move on. Blogs, however, are active: users have the ability to enter their own content, comment on the others’ content, and share their content with anyone with an Internet connection. 5. We have also seen a drastic change in the materiality and functionality of the Web browser. No longer merely a rectangle used to display Web pages, browsers are spaces that expand to include multiple tabs, dynamic sidebars.. 6. In Web 2.0, the shift from passive to active participation has radically transformed the way we interact and understand how the Web works. 7. Many have noted how Web 2.0 applications tend to ignore (and in many cases thwart) current usability standards (Hart et al.; Pilgrim; “Web 2.0 'neglecting good design'”). One need only experience reading certain blogs to suspect usability standards are being violated by the considerable scrolling, obnoxiously abundant sidebar links, and insufficient use of ALT text and title tags. 8. This paper presents two case studies that raise significant questions about the viability of traditional usability standards and methodologies when applied to Web 2.0 sites and applications. First, we investigate and consider the implications of several ways users can share information across Web sites. Second, we investigate and consider the implications of the terms group, community, and network as they are applied across Web 2.0 sites. Case Study: Sharing, Feeding, Embedding, and Toolbar-ing 9. Because designers of Web 2.0 applications are aware that their users have accounts, data, and colleagues on other Web 2.0 applications, most provide their users with an option to share content across sites. Sharing functionality promotes the idea of community within the site and within the Web 2.0 community as a whole. 10. Most Web 2.0 applications offer their users the ability to share information by clicking on a share link, often represented by a button, which then posts the information to other Web 2.0 applications. Usually a share link is clearly marked as “share” and easily distinguishable from other content on the application’s site; however, the word “share” is sometimes replaced with a similar word like “add” or “bookmark. 11. If a user chooses to share their photo on Facebook, they select the Facebook link. 12. Traditional Web sites, such as the New York Times Web site, also often include share links so users can disseminate content. Unlike with Picnik, however, when a reader decides to share content on, say, MySpace, an unannounced window pops-up connecting users to MySpace’s share functionality. 13. The act of browsing the Web is quickly becoming antiquated in the age of Web 2.0. As a result of RSS and RSS readers, no longer do users have to recall sites they like, enter the URL in the address bar, and go to the site to see if the site has new content. 14. Embedding also provides users with the ability to view content from one site with the space of another site. With embedding, however, users copy HTML or other code supplied by one site and paste it into the code of another site. 15. Users may also engage their browser toolbar as a share function. Many Web 2.0 applications, like Shareaholic, offer browser add-ons that can be downloaded and installed into a browser. Others applications, like Twitlet, offer users the ability to merely drag a link from the Web page to the toolbar. Both functions result in a toolbar button that provides users the ability to share content from one site to another.
