!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> Streamline Training & Documentation: Dmitry Fadeyev on Common Usability Mistakes

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Dmitry Fadeyev on Common Usability Mistakes

Back in September 2006, an interesting English-language e-zine was founded in Lübeck, Germany. Smashing Magazine is addressed to designers and Web developers.

One of the frequent Smashing Magazine authors is Dmitry Fadeyev, a Web designer based in England. On February 18, an illuminating article by Fadeyev called "9 Common Usability Mistakes in Web Design was posted.

The mistakes Fadeyev describes are:
  1. Tiny clickable areas on a Web page.


  2. Pagination used for the wrong purpose, i.e., for the purpose of increasing page views in order to increase ad revenue.


  3. Duplicate page titles instead of a unique title for each page.


  4. Content that is difficult to scan visually.


  5. No way to get in touch with the website's owner (i.e., the company, organization, or individual that publishes the website).


  6. No way to search.


  7. Too much functionality that requires registration before you can use it.


  8. Permalinks that, in fact, are dead.


  9. Long registration forms.
In addition to the article itself, the comments conributed by readers, with some responses from Fadeyev, are often a source of good ideas.

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posted by Karen Nelson @ 11:31 PM