Week 12 – Usability

For this activity I choose to investigate the usability of the BBC bite size website as my daughter is using it to revise for her immanent GCSE Maths exam. The World Usability Website simply describes usability as something that makes life easier and more user friendly; ‘technology today is too hard to use. A cell phone should be as easy to access as a doorknob’ (World Usability Website, 2010). I am not sure I agree that any technology should be as easy as using a door knob but get the meaning that you should not have to read a manufacturers manual to operate it!

On the surface the Bitesize website looks very well laid out through adult eyes; nice choice of colours, simple layout design, not too fussy, easy to navigate between topics and move into other subject areas. My 14 year old saw it from a different angle. Whilst the idea of having a chat facility on the site to discuss questions and issues could be a great addition she does not know anyone who would use it. In fact at the time of viewing less that 10 people have contributed to it in the last week. She would rather use facebook to discuss revision questions within her own social network of friends. Now where does this fit within the Pyramid of Usability? I initially thought ‘context-specific’ might be the best fit but then again the ‘general’ level covers the accessibilities and more specifically the user’s comfort to using a certain channel to communicate with others. Perhaps the model does not cater for personal preferences?

Jakob Nielsen (2010) makes a very interesting statement that ‘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’. Below the fold means the web content that you need to scroll down to view. This agrees with my own experience and I also observed my daughter only giving a cursory glance at the content on the bottom of the screen. To be fair the Bitesize site hosts the majority of useful and relevant subject matter at the top of the web pages. This fits well within the ‘general’ level of the pyramid of usability as the structure is clear to use and easy to navigate around.

The mobile version of the website is a different matter and very much depends on the device and viewing setting. For example I used a PDA to access the same content and images are removed so you have a different look and feel at the expense of efficiency of navigation. The PDA view setting enable better usability by arranging the content into a single column so you only have to scroll down and not across as well. I think the BBC do a great job catering for mobile users which is more than I say about some providers of learning materials.

World Usability Day (2010) World Usablity Day – Making Life Easer, http://www.worldusabilityday.org/ (Accessed 26 Apr 2010)

Jakob Nielsen (2010) Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox – Scrolling and Attention, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html (Accessed 27 Apr 2010)