The Henry Ford Museum website - too much of a good thing?

I just had reason to visit the website of “The Henry Ford” (comprising The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village)

This site is an example of what happens when the aim is to give visitors to a site as much control and as many options as possible, in the smallest possible space.

On the home page alone, I found:

• 2 quick-link drop-downs: “I am” and “How do I” (see below)
• 2 ticket-purchase drop-downs: “Purchase by venue” and “Purchase by event”
• A search box
• A login-in form: user name + password
• A “Plan your visit” form: 4 fields + 5 buttons
• A menubar with 13 menu items, each with a roll-over drop-down of up to 12 items
• 13 buttons (apart from the ones as part of forms)
• 20 text links (including 4 in a scrolling field and 9 in click-to-expand boxes)
• 3 image links
• an auto-start video (with sound) + 5 video links

Many of the features are good ideas by themselves. (I particularly like the “I am” and “How do I” controls; the auto-start video is a mistake, especially on a home page.) But taken together, all these elements would just cause bewilderment.

[More about the “I am” and “How do I” quick-links (shown as “smart site”):

Choices for “I am”:

• Just Browsing
• Educator
• Private Event Planner or Bride
• A Local Visitor
• Group or Tour Planner
• History Enthusiast
• Tourist/Out of Town Visitor
• Member
• With Media

Each choice produces a different menu for “How do I”. Eg, for “With Media” the menu is:

• Get Member Discounts
• Buy an Annual Ride Pass
• Upgrade my Membership level
• Renew my Membership
• Buy a Gift Membership
• Donate to the Annual Fund

MoMA does a similar thing in its navigation footer-bar.]

Are people drawn to faces on web pages?

Short presentation by Tom Tullis, on an eye-tracking study which looks at use of faces on web pages. Apparently, users tend to be drawn to faces when browsing but the more task-driven they are, the less likely they are to pay attention to anything that resembles advertising, and faces usually mean advertising.

Email newsletters: usability

Jakob Nielsen has written an interesting article on the e-newsletters from the 3 major parties in the UK election campaign, from a usability perspective. My summary:

Sign-up:

Remove distractions from the sign-up page.

While consistency is usually good, it's actually bad to include a 'Sign up' link on the sign-up page, even if it shows on every other page on the site.

Privacy policy: Users need to see (or get to) the privacy policy where you ask for their info.

Confirmation page: Say exactly what you're confirming right up top.

Send confirmation email ASAP, with a readable 'from' field and an unambiguous 'subject field'.

Good example:
From: Liberal Democrats
Subject: Thank you for signing up for Liberal Democrat email news

Bad example:
From: labourparty@email-new.labour.org.uk
Subject: Thank you for signing up

Emails:

'From' field: either a recognised institutional name or a celebrity in his/her own name.

Subject line: add some actual content to summarise, and enhance the "open-me" attractiveness of the email.

Publication frequency: Be consistent, and consistent with what you promised. And not too often.

Feature prominent links to Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

Write at a year 8 reading level (suitable for a well-schooled 15-year-old.)
More info on catering for visitors with low literacy >

I don't know much about the web but I know what I like

The Web is a bit like an art museum: an amazingly rich resource which is too easily squandered. I have just posted an article on my website (originally presented as a paper at the Ark Group Information Architecture Forum, and at Oz-IA 2009), which introduces principles and techniques used in art museum education and shows how they can be applied in web construction, writing and design. It offers insights into:

• transforming information chaos into information order
• eliminating inessentials
• making personal connections with visitors (or users) through relevance and participation, while minimising cognitive load
• structuring content in terms of what visitors want to know and do, rather than “internal, organisational imperatives”
• the need for unity and consistency, to allow visitors to build up a mental model of the site
• showing a human face, where appropriate.

Read more...