Questionable Design Decisions Seen Around the Web
Whenever I see things online that don't make sense to me I always wonder "Why did they do that?" I suspect there must have been a reason, but in most cases I'll never know.
Here are a few sites that have made me wonder recently.
FIFA World Cup
Because of the time difference between Seattle and Germany, I've been following a lot of the World Cup matches via FIFA's MatchCast service.
They do a good job of fitting a lot of information into a small area, but is it really necessary to include fouls committed and suffered?
After all, won't the number of fouls committed by team A be equal to the number suffered by team B?
Of course, in this instance (see screenshot), they are not – and I haven't a clue why. Who can you commit a foul against other than the opposing team? The ref? Yourself?
How Many Levels of Navigation?
The KIRO 7 web site obviously believes more navigation is better. Surely this can't have been tested with users. Four rows of navigation?! I've got to believe that there are some (huge) usability issues with this arrangement.
Sidenote: Jared Spool has written a great article about creating link rich home pages.
Tag Clouds for Non-Techies?
Parenting.com has adopted an interesting way to display popular search results and conceptually I think it works rather well.
However, I wonder if this format is appropriate for the audience to this web site – non-technical mothers. This concern seems to be backed up by the fact that the concept of the tag cloud has to be explained above it.
User-Generated or Not?
On closer examination, I'm not buying that this is a user-generated tag cloud. These terms look like they have been written by the site's editors. I mean, who's really going to be using the phrases "back talk" or "gear & products" to search for things?
So, either these terms were created by the site's editors based on user search data, or they just made them up. I'm beginning believe the latter.
I even wonder if the relative importance given to the different terms is based on any actual user data.
eBay Wiki
Although these are supposed to be check marks, they look more like capital V's. How hard would it be to make them a bit clearer?
Posted on: June 16, 2006 | 14 Comments
Recent Entries in "Web Design"
Recent Posts
- NCsoft North America is Hiring Web Folks (2)
- BBC News Site Redesign and User Feedback (16)
- A Good Meta Description is Hard to Find (19)
- I've Got a New Job (15)
- Online Charting Tool for RSS Feeds (4)
- 8 Questions You Should Ask on Every Project (9)
- Get More Traffic: 18 Social Media Sites for Web Designers (26)
- The Evolution of a Button (8)
- Home Page Carousel Showcase: 40+ Carousel Designs (11)
Popular Posts
- CSS Rounded Corners 'Roundup' (77)
- Using a Background Image Grid to Lay Out Your Web Site (43)
- Typography for Headlines (40)
- Blog Comment Form Design Showcase (15)
- Blog Comment Design Showcase (36)
- How to Get a Job in the Web Industry (24)
- How to Create a Block Hover Effect for a List of Links (32)
- How to Write a Web Site Creative Brief (6)
- How to Style 'Author' Comments Differently on Your Blog (9)
- How to Style an A to Z Index with CSS (5)
14 Comments Posted
No fan of football myself but it appears to me that the fouls suffered / commited are tournament wide. Figures in left and right hand columns, (in the screenshot)almost match and make sense - almost as though the screen shot was captured prior to update. Makes perfect sense to me (possibly incorrectly) though as I say football generally does not.
1. Posted by Mike Riley on June 16, 2006
I was dubious about the value of tag clouds for non-techies but I've seen a few absolutely love them. Probably better to have them in size order not alphabetical for that audience though.
2. Posted by Mary-Ann on June 16, 2006
Re the cloud tags... gear and products? who clicks? not many hence its smallness. Tag clouds dont work for me at all (it's a useless mess) and I'm not a non technical mother (rather sweeping statement that). Comparison of tags against products for sale on the site detective stylee might help point to how these tags appeared but then I suspect not. They appear to be as random and unuseable as any other tag cloud Ive ever seen.
3. Posted by Mike on June 16, 2006
Mike Riley - the fouls stats are for that game only, as are all the other stats in the screenshot. So I still don't know what that mystery 'extra' foul was for.
Mary-Ann - On reflection, I think I'm on the fence as to the value of tag clouds. I can understand why people might not like them and even find them difficult to use. Having not done any user-testing with them, I can't say for sure how good or bad they are for the majority of people.
Mike - My point re. "gear and products" is that no one would be searching the site using that phrase - it's way too generic. Therefore, how come that phrase is in the tag cloud if it's supposed to be generated by the most popular search terms? Something smells fishy.
Non-technical mother – sweeping statement? Yes, but I'm guessing I'm pretty close to the mark knowing a lot of mothers through my wife and their level of experience with the web.
You raise some good questions about the usability of tag clouds. I haven't come across any studies, but I'm now inclined to wonder exactly how usable (and therefore useful) they are?
4. Posted by Christian Watson on June 16, 2006
I am not a huge fan of tag clouds either. I understand their purpose, however I just have never found them usefull. I am more apt to browse through material or search through it directly, rather than clicking through tag clouds.
5. Posted by Ross Johnson on June 17, 2006
lol @ the devised tag cloud of parenting.com!
...and yes, the eBay checkmarks look suspiciously like capital V's.
6. Posted by Sugar on June 17, 2006
Given the negative comments so far regarding tag clouds, I wonder if there is a strong design / usability argument for using them as opposed to laying out this information using more 'traditional' methods.
Or is it that their popularity is more a case of them being the 'flavor of the moment'?
7. Posted by Christian Watson on June 18, 2006
Well your screenshot of the tag cloud is identical to today's, 3 days later. So I suspect its just a marketing ploy.
8. Posted by Lydia on June 19, 2006
... on TagClouds
I think TagClouds are "usable" enough to non-tech people. Big=Important, or Big=Popular... i think it's easy to understand.
Yes an explanation of this was worth to do...
... on eBay
eBay had always strange ideas of design and usability... for me (tech-people) is hard to browse in eBay!!
In my opinion, they have to re-design most of eBay pages... it reminds me Amazon: plenty of information written in the page without order... bleah...
9. Posted by greenkey on June 20, 2006
greenkey - I'm not so convinced about the usability of tag clouds.
Here's an example from Technorati:
Other than Iraq, Microsoft and world cup, everything else seems to blend in together.
How is this better than a table or a list? And, why are the tags listed in alphabetical order? If you're trying to show what tags are the most popular, wouldn't it be better to list them in order of popularity?
This would be an interesting topic for a formal usability research study.
10. Posted by Christian Watson on June 20, 2006
Two comments
1. How many Levels of Navigation:
It's not only the mentioned station that sports such a horrible design - many local network affiliates are obviously served by just one company providing this "design". It's not only the navigation shown that is mindbugglingly bad - the rest of the site(s) don not fair better in all areas.
I wonder, if those responsible for deciding on the design actually know, how good and entertaining the web can be. And TV stations certainly have plenty of content to offer. However - judging by the poor design choices made throughout the country - they don't really seem to care.
2: Tag clouds
If you ask me - it's a horrible view - taking a lot of space away that could be used for more productive things.
But if you want to achieve entering the Web 2.0 club
AND want to have your site look cluttered - it's a perfect choice.
11. Posted by kjpweb on August 07, 2006
Addendum:
Just looked up who does the websites for all these stations. It's a company called Internet Broadcasting (http://www.ibsys.com).
They recently "changed" the "design" in many stations - now you have an endless vertical array of links that let's you scroll two screenheights. So just a shift from horizontal to vertical user unfriendliness.
The station you mentioned is also an IBSYS Client.
12. Posted by kjpweb on August 07, 2006
kjpweb – it's strange why these TV station sites are generally so horrible.
Within reason, there's a clear ROI on good design – visitors will be able to use your site and thus be more likely to stay longer and/or come back more regularly.
I just don't get why these templated systems have to create such ugly looking sites. Perhaps they have a lot of legacy issues to deal with which means that they are limited in the improvements they can make to the way their tools work?
I don't know; it's beyond me!
13. Posted by Christian Watson on August 08, 2006
Yeah - usually true - but it seems that the rulebook went out the window there...
(On the other hand - looking at what these stations fabricate as news - why should I be surprised if they have a similarly distorted view, on what a website should look like...)
Funny however - that stations usually fighting each other use the same "design". In case of Orlando - NBC, ABC and CBS affiliates. Sort of weird. Or an indication that they rather not have an emphasis on the web...
14. Posted by kjpweb on August 08, 2006