Activity 1.2

Why OpenOffice.org

Upon landing on this site you do have to ask yourself ‘why OpenOffice?’.

I am an avid supporter of Open Source Software.  Not just because it’s free. But it keeps the ‘for profit’ manufacturers and developers on their toes. And I believe it is one of the key factors, or driving forces of Web2.0. Without Open Source and Creative Commons Licensing we wouldn’t have luminary applications like; FireFox, Thunderbird, Linux and MySQL.

OpenOffice is a favoured application for me. Although it does have some ‘Hiccups’ when opening docs created from the later versions of Microsoft Office, it is generally fully compatible. And anyone familiar with the layout and tools of Microsoft Office prior to Office 2007 (Microsoft seriously altered the user interface of 2007, much to their detriment in my opinion) would easily be able to pick it up and use it with out much of a learning curve. I use it as my main Office Suite and have an older version (I cannot afford an upgrade) of Microsoft Office “just in case”.

I’m an avid supporter of OpenOffice and I regularly refer people to it who mention they “cannot afford” Microsoft Office.

So I was rather disappointed to find such a poorly designed and constructed site used to publicise the OpenOffice product.

I accessed the site via the parent site http://www.openoffice.org/. This is a nice well designed simple site with clear navigation points, it’s easily scanned for information, and you don’t have to ‘think’ about what to do next.

OpenOffice.org - The free and open productivity suite

So I am a new user say, and I want to learn more about OpenOffice.org and why I should use it. So I click on the clearly visible  “I want to learn more about OpenOffice.org” button. And I am presented with this; http://why.openoffice.org/

Why OpenOffice.org

I do wonder what went wrong here? Firstly the design bears no correlation to its parent. I have to wonder if I have been sent to the wrong URL? Or is this some sort of spoof address? When I first went to the site I actually clicked the back button and rechecked the link.

The design itself is very “amatuerish”. It reminds me of freely available stock HTML templates.

I am bewildered by the shear amount of copy presented to me on the opening page. The copy is grouped together in huge chunks, with very little white space, which makes it very daunting to read. This to me creates a lot of visual noise.

There are no clear points of focus which again adds to the overwhelming nature of the page. Although from a young age reading books in western cultures teaches us to read from top left to bottom right. That only occurs in the first initial millisecond scan of a webpage. People tend not to read websites top to bottom; they start reading whatever grabs their attention first, and then move to the next thing that captures their interest.

Refer to this study; http://eyetrack.poynter.org/keys_01.html

This tool uses analytics to make a ‘heat map’ of how users view your site; http://www.feng-gui.com/ which demonstrates how users scan pages.

On why.openoffice.org there is no visual hierarchy. There is nothing that captures your interest first. As a designer ideally you are trying to guide a user on a ‘journey’ through the information on your site. That way they take in everything you deem important, or they can judge visually what is important or pertinent to them easily and access the information quickly.

There are no clear conventions applied. I refer mainly to the contextual navigation. There is emboldened text within the copy;

bold text

That to me would represent links. But they aren’t. It’s just bold text, I assume of key-phrases, but as there are so many of them they lose their impact.

The menu is very small and visually unclear.

why OpenOffice.org menu

And there are further navigation elements within the homepage that take you to subcategories and further information;

why OpenOffice.org sub-navigation

But they too are lost within the visual clutter. It’s not immediately clear visually that they are actually navigable links. And when you do follow the links there is no visual clues or hierarchy to indicate that you are in a subcategory of the site. There is also no navigation to take you directly to the other subcategories.

And finally as this is such an information heavy site I would have considered including search functionality. Many users start looking for a search box as soon as they arrive on a website.  Jakob Nielsen calls these people search-dominant users:

“Our usability studies show that more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior. The search-dominant users will usually go straight for the search button when they enter a website: they are not interested in looking around the site; they are task-focused and want to find specific information as fast as possible.

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Jakob Nielsen

To summerise I feel this site is bewildering, there is an over abundance of visual clutter and there are no clear conventions applied. It does not represent its product well.

Filed under: Learning Activities, Communication, User experience

Responce: The good, the bad, the ugly

in response to:

“With regards to Flash, I think it can also be used in clever ways to maximise space and minimise clutter, in ways that JavaScript / Ajax controls just can’t manage. I often design experiences that can be built in HTML, but with Flash elements. You get around any residual indexing and load issues (as only sections or panels use the Flash) but you can ‘fold up’ a lot of information into smaller spaces, with smooth animated controls and no page refreshes!”

Bridget Dalton, Student

I agree Flash has it’s place. But it needs very detailed consideration on it’s appropriateness in use.

Too often it is used for sites that are primarily information driven – and that just doesn’t work. A user just wants to get to the information. They don’t care about nice animations between loading. It’s also not search-able by browser integrated or web search engines. Which in-turn means its not indexed by search engines. It’s often not accessible.

And another thing with flash often ‘cowboy’ designers think they need to show off and make use of everything in Flash’s arsenal. For instance sound. Non-user initiated sound is just totally unacceptable I believe; especially in online ad’s. It is just intrusive. If you browse like I do using tabs, you are suddenly bombarded by sound from a hidden tab and you have to search through to turn it off or quickly find your volume button.

Another thing that seems to still be lingering from the origins of Flash days is flash intro screens. They have no place on a site. People want to get to the site and get presented with the information they want as fast as possible. A flash intro is just an extra unnecessary step. Really what use is it? It is just left over from when Flash was first introduced. Designers where keen to use this new technology but not really sure what to do with it, so all these flash intro’s popped up on websites basically saying “look at me, I’m using new technology!”.

New technology that is often overlook is Microsoft’s SilverLight. Possible because it is from Microsoft. But it is very similar technology but it has some benefits over Flash. It has more potential for accessibility. It is search engine friendly. It should be more prevalent than it currently is.

Filed under: Weekly Discussions, Flash, Microsoft, New Media, User experience, Web 2.0

User Experience Design for Non-Designers

I found this 20min video pretty interesting and thought it was worth posting.

Video – Part 1

Video – Part 2

Filed under: Videos, New Media, User experience