Some reasons why we won't change the homepage based on requests:
- There wasn't an actual problem. For example, you may have told us that you think it's too difficult to find your site, but there have been no situations when a person gave up on trying to find your site, or was so displeased by the process that it had real-world negative effects on your relationship with them.
- We assume users have basic computer skills. If your request includes the phrase "but what if they don't know that the blue underlined words are a link" or "our visitors don't know how to print a page" then the answer will be no. We want the site to be easy to use, but teaching extremely basic computer skills is probably beyond the scope of our organization and definitely beyond the scope of my department. (In practice, we actually end up teaching a lot of basic computer skills.)
- The improvement for a few isn't worth the disorientation to everyone. Even if you're right, changing a prominent part of the home page will disorient more people than it will help. Consider that we have over 2,000 employees, over 20,000 students, the families of all those students, and thousands each of community members, job applicants, employees of other districts, vendors, adoptrs, volunteers. Many of these people use the site at least a couple times each month, and a change that disorients even a small fraction of them could be a problem.
Anon (unauthenticated)
Oct 30, 2008 8:50 PM
Thank you for offering reasons for the decisions you make. I feel respected and enlightened!
David Nielsen
Nov 11, 2008 4:09 PM
I'm surprised anyone read this. :) It's frustrating that we don't often have good opportunities to explain the thinking behind what we do. We're nice people, and we really want to make everyone's experience enjoyable, and we (Carolyn and I) really do discuss and consider all of the feedback we get.
One of the key ideas of usability is that no one should look at a website and say "this change, this change, and this change would make the site more user-friendly"...we should avoid doing that because a lot of things that are usability problems on paper end up working out OK in real life, or at least, they're better than the alternative.
For example, someone might say that the phone on my desk would be easier to use if I programmed a bunch of numbers into the speed dial. In practice, not having those numbers programmed isn't causing any problems -- I'm still able to call everyone I need and I don't feel like my phone is inefficient. And really, dialing the 4-digit extensions helps me remember them, and then I can call those numbers even if I'm not at my own phone.
The web is like that. Your suggestion might be exactly spot on, that in many cases the change you suggest would be helpful. But we have to take a good look at everything that is affected by such a change.
David Nielsen
Nov 17, 2008 10:35 AM
Gerry McGovern says it more clearly:
"Are the customers who give feedback reflecting the top tasks of the average customer or do they have exceptional tasks and demands? Because if their tasks and demands are exceptional then changing your website to meet them may be the worst thing you could do."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-11-10-customer-feedback.htm