Usability Is Not a Luxury

http://jnd.org/dn.mss/usability_is_not_a_luxury.html

This essay talks about user experiences everyone goes through when navigating to a website to find out information or make a purchase. It goes into some detail about the differences between different websites pertaining to the user's ability to find the information or product in the shortest number of clicks and frustration. Donald Norman also talks about the differences of switching cost pertaining to shopping in-store and shopping online. He gives you a very good sense of how each of these experiences are different and how we respond to them. Norman describes the reaction an individual feels when arriving at a website that has been poorly designed, leaving the viewer to try and figure out how to navigate around the site for the information they are looking for. In another section of his essay, he talks about the success rates of sites concerning visitors or conversion rates. He explains how when people have a positive user experience on a website they are more apt to return. People tend to gravitate toward sites that are user friendly and easy to use. He also makes mention of how many people visit a website and add an item to their shopping cart and never return to purchase that item. There are a couple reasons why this happens. First off, most people will add an item to their shopping cart and leave to compare product information/pricing on alternate websites. Secondly, people tend to leave abandoned items in a shopping cart due to the payment process being too difficult to use. He sums up his essay with how to provide good user experiences and the importance of user testing. User testing is very important and can be achieved by simply watching a complete stranger navigate around your site without any interruptions while you observe their reaction and overall experience. It is important that every experience be user friendly as real people have real tasks to accomplish.

I chose "Usability Is Not a Luxury" because of the very easy to understand ways of how real people feel when navigating around and how easy it is for them to complete the task they set out to accomplish. I really enjoyed reading the examples he using in this essay to help clarify the importance of how your business choices affect others when they are trying to look up information or purchase something. All said and done, people tend to become a customer when they feel you appreciate their business and provide them with a simpler way of accomplishing the task they need to complete.