“Mother should I trust the government?” – and its web usability?

Pink Floyd lyrics aside, we as web users utilize governmental websites on a regular basis. The public depends on governmental websites for a variety of services ranging from renewing a driver’s license or complaining to the Department of Transportation about the potholes craters found throughout the Michigan roadways.

However, just who exactly provides the usability guidelines to be followed when designing these websites?

According to Usability.gov:

Usability.gov is the primary government source for information on usability and user-centered design. It provides guidance and tools on how to make Web sites and other communication systems more usable and useful.

This site was developed to specifically assist Web managers, designers, usability specialists, and others create Web sites that are highly responsive, easy-to-use, and useful (About Us section, n.d.).

Additionally, management of the website falls under the United States Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs.

Furthermore, Usability.gov contains a multitude of usability guideless pertaining to designing websites for the government. The website also contains templates and a blog relating to web usability within the government.

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(n.d.) About Us. Retrieved from http://www.usability.gov/about/index.html

Waters, R. (1979). Mother [Recorded by Pink Floyd]. On The Wall [CD]. Nice, France: EMI.

Keeping your head above the fold

During our March 15 class meeting, we looked at some potential webpage templates. Furthermore, we briefly discussed above the fold vs. below the fold.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the phrase, it is a term often used in the design of a newspaper ... you know, those pieces of paper people used to read to brush up on the news.

Web usability guru Dr. Jakob Nielsen has developed a definition of the phrase in relation to website design. According to Nielsen (2010), “In Web design, there's much confusion about the ‘page fold’ concept and the importance of keeping the most salient information within a page's initially viewable area. That is, in fact, the definition: ‘above the fold’ simply means ‘viewable without further action’” (para. 1).

Moreover, people have short attention spans. Therefore, it is important to keep that in mind when designing for your target audience.

Nielsen (2010) further adds, “Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold” (Summary section).

Therefore, the most important information for the reader should go above the fold when designing a webpage.

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Nielsen, J. (2010, March 22). Scrolling and attention. Retrieved from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html

If you read only one CSS PhD Thesis this year, make it this one...

Håkon Wium Lie is the individual who proposed the concept of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in 1994 while working at the world's largest particle physics laboratory known as CERN.

His PhD thesis provides a background into the origins of CSS. It details the motivation behind creating the style sheet language.

According to Wie (2005):

The topic of this thesis is style sheet languages for structured documents on the web. Due to characteristics of the web – including a screen-centric publishing model, a multitude of output devices, uncertain delivery, strong user preferences, and the possibility for later binding between content and style – the hypothesis is that the web calls for different style sheet languages than does traditional electronic publishing.

Style sheet languages that were developed and used prior to the web are analyzed and compared with style sheet proposals for the web between 1993-1996. The dissertation describes the design of a web-centric style sheet language known as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS has several notable features including: cascading, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements, forward-compatible parsing rules, support for different media types, and a strong emphasis on selectors. Problems in CSS are analyzed, and recommended future research is described.

While Lie's thesis is quite lengthy, it gives readers unique insight regarding CSS as well as what it is like to write a PhD thesis.

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Lie, H. (2005). Cascading style sheets [Abstract] (Doctoral thesis, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway). Retrieved from http://people.opera.com/howcome/2006/phd/#h-10

Useful Firefox add-on for CSS: Firebug

Firebug is a very useful tool for web designers who use Firefox as a web browser.

According to Firebug's web site, "Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page" ("What is Firebug?" n.d.).

Firebug allows users to inspect the cascade and copy colors and image URLs. Furthermore, it allows users to make changes in CCS and see them instantly ("CSS Development," n.d.).

Users can download the add-on by going to http://getfirebug.com/.

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(n.d.) What is Firebug?. Retrieved from http://getfirebug.com/whatisfirebug

Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle

March marks the 15th anniversary of the incorporation of Yahoo!, which should not be confused with the web portal’s actual creation date, as some articles have misreported.

According to The History of Yahoo! - How It All Started... webpage (2005):

Yahoo! began as a student hobby and evolved into a global brand that has changed the way people communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The two founders of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born.

The Web site started out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" but eventually received a new moniker with the help of a dictionary. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth." Yahoo! itself first resided on Yang's student workstation, "Akebono," while the software was lodged on Filo's computer, "Konishiki" - both named after legendary sumo wrestlers ... In March 1995, the pair incorporated the business and met with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists ("The History of Yahoo!," para. 1 & 2).

As a wee lad, I recall utilizing Yahoo! in 1994 because it was extremely organized compared to most other search engines at the time.

While Yahoo! has declined in popularity over the years as Google currently dominates the market share, it remains a very important search engine. For individuals wishing to learn more about search engine optimization, the history of Yahoo! is a good reference point.

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Yahoo! Media Relations. (2005) The history of yahoo! - How it all started... Retrieved from http://docs.yahoo.com/info/misc/history.html

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association - whether you like or dislike it, learn to love it!

As a graduate student in the Master of Science in Technical and Professional Communication program at Lawrence Tech University, I find myself attached at the hip to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

This manual provides style guidelines to aid individuals within the
behavioral and social sciences. Furthermore, I use the text to reference and cite sources for research papers and blogs such as this one, which was created for my website design course.

The editor in chief, Gary VadenBos, describes the purpose of the manual in the foreword by writing, "the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association has been designed to advance scholarship by setting sound and rigorous standards for scientific communication ... Today, APA Style sets a standard that is realized in APA journals, books, and electronic databases" (VadenBos, 2009, p. xiii).

The text is divided into eight sections covering such topics as the mechanics of style and crediting sources. It includes multiple examples and illustrations for the reader to understand and apply.

The American Psychological Association has created a straightforward style manual for technical communicators, as it is an essential text for research, documentation and citation.

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VandenBos, G.R. (Ed.). (2009). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign...

Technical communicators should be aware of a field of study known as semiotics. Semiotician Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics: The Basics provides a comprehensible introduction to the world of semiotics. In this book, Chandler attempts to explain the fundamentals of semiotics to a novice audience.

According to Chandler (2007), “Semiotics could be anywhere. The shortest definition is that it is the study of signs … Semiotics is concerned with meaning-making and representation in many forms, perhaps most obviously n the forms of texts and media” (p. 1-2).

Chandler includes real world examples and studies to define key terms such as contrasting Apple and IBM logos to describe paradigmatic analysis.

Chandler admits his rudimentary approach to semiotics is somewhat misleading; however, the author is forthcoming about his methods as he admits there is little agreement among modern theorists regarding the subject.

Rather than a book that requires readers to refer to a dictionary every other line, this text is crucial to contemporary communication theory as it offers a user-friendly guide – complete with a glossary of key terms – to important themes including sign systems and structuralism.

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Chandler, D. (2007). Semiotics: The basics (2nd ed.). London, England: Routledge.

Progress in usability

Web usability is one of the most important topics pertaining to web design; however, how much has web usability improved over the years?

Dr. Jakob Nielsen recently compiled data regarding usability improvements over the past decade.

According to Nielsen (2010), "Over the past decade, usability improved by 6% per year. This is a faster rate than most other fields, but much slower than technology advances might have predicted" (Summary section).

As a result, web designers are making progress at a somewhat low amount of speed.

Nielsen further writes, "So, why is usability less like technology and more like all other fields of human progress? Because usability is about humans, not computers. We're designing around the fixed limitations of the human mind, and we have to improve websites and products within the constraints of organizational inertia. It's not enough for a designer to attend a usability seminar and learn the guidelines for making websites easier. The designer also has to convince the marketing VP, which can take years" (Progress in Other Fields section, para. 7).

Therefore, the human element is a leading factor that influences web usability, which web designers should always be aware of.

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Nielsen, J. (2010, February 22). Progress in usability: Fast or slow? Retrieved from http://www.useit.com/alertbox/usability-progress-rate.html

Feedback for a web link

In my other life, I am a writer. My book review entitled Russo's Rope Opera reveals behind the scenes of WCW and TNA was published today.

Although I do not have much control over the layout, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you may have concerning the design as it relates to principles we have learned in class.

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Nation, C. R. (2010, March 1). Russo's Rope Opera reveals behind the scenes of WCW and TNA. SLAM! Sports. Retrieved from http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2010/02/11/13065601.html