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Website Review of http amitdeshpande.com ...
Is Flashy Friendly?
This is a very modern, personal site of and by a web expert.
Does that mean it stands up well against my usability criteria?
Read on and see. (It's a simple site so not all of my criteria
apply.)
Congratulations! This is a free usability
review from UsabilityInstitute.com. "Usability" refers to how
easy and effective it is to use a Web site. Although it involves
how a site looks (graphic artwork), it is primarily concerned
with how a site works, what you click on, what happens, and
whether the site does its job.
- Perhaps
this review is all you need to improve your site. If that's
the case, great. Please mention UsabilityInstitute.com if
you talk with others who need help with their site.
The following three sections provide a general
analysis of your website from a relatively quick review. Although
Web design is still perceived as a highly creative endeavor,
there are many aspects of it that call for standardization
and compliance with widely established conventions. Implementing
even a few of the ideas below can really improve a site.
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This first
section is intended for typical public web sites (for
products and corporate information), but also applies
for the most part to intranets and software applications
that run in a browser. We've been advocating many of
these ideas—in the context of general software—since our
1997 book, Computers Stink, but they've been beautifully
enumerated for WWW purposes in Steve Krug's book, "Don't
Make Me Think." |
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Click
for explanation |
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Hover for explanation
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Comments |
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1. |
Logo
in top left, linked to home |
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It's linked, but to
a page that I don't consider the home. In fact, on further
inspection I couldn't figure out what page it was. In
other words, no other navigational link got me to that
page. |
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2. |
Tagline |
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This is a tough one
for personal pages, since it's a "selling" line and one
might not be selling anything. |
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3. |
Welcome
blurb |
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Yes,
but it's on the About page. |
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4. |
Plain
wording |
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5. |
No
'happy talk' |
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6. |
Concise
wording |
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7. |
Visited
pages are distinguished by link color-coding |
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It appears
to be a one-level, six-page site so it's not a factor. |
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8. |
"Utilities" are
easy to find |
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Yes,
but trivial... Contact page. |
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9. |
Search
on all pages, with box and button |
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No. |
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10. |
"You
Are Here" indicator |
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11. |
Breadcrumbs'
as links |
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No.
(Then later, spotted them on just one area.) |
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Students and Professional Developers:
Designing a serious software application in a
browser? Don't spend time and money designing the
look and styles... there's more than you think involved!
Instead, use GenericUI,
shareware CSS and artwork that's free for non-commercial
use and indefinite trial use.
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Do your hands ache after a day at the keyboard??? This review
sponsored by...
Summation & Next Steps
Overall Rating: Strives / Survives
/ Thrives
Overall, a high quality user experience needing only minor
fixes. Remember this is a superficial review, so for fundamentally
sound sites, it tends to be a little forgiving since I don't
dig very deeply into genuine user experiences.
Recommendations:
- Establish what the real home page is and link it to the
logo.
- If work is being solicited, say so on the home page in
the welcome blurb. The credentials are clear, from the site
itself.
- Make the links stand out more (light blue/gray text?).
Personally, I'm not a fan of using the background color as
a differentiator. From a graphics perspective I don't like
the blockiness of the rectangle highlight.
- I don't have a checklist item for "Doesn't change scroll
bar colors," but if I did it would be a negative item on
this site. Inside the Contacts page, one uses the default
and another doesn't. The colors are decent (see Links page)
but on Designblog, its on the whole page and you start to
see my objection. The scroll bar is just too much of a "primitive" to
'fiddle with.' I recommend not changing it at all.
Hope this helps and let me know
what you think,
Jack Bellis, UsabilityInstitute.com
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