Usability, web copywriting and the real world

I was out visiting a prospective client yesterday, and the team were happy to share the results of some recent usability studies on their current website.

I'd already had a look at their site before the meeting, and there were no real surprises in the report. All the usual suspects were there:

• people didn't know where a link would take them
• tone of voice was dull and partonising in parts
• content was arranged by type, not subject
• content was about policy and background, as opposed to real world information

Anyway, it was incredibly interesting to see people comment on the tone of voice, and describe how they'd struggled to find the information they needed. Priceless stuff.

It then struck me that most clients don't involve their web copywriter in this way. OK, maybe that's because most new websites aren't built on the back thorough usability testing - but it was great to see everything being done properly.

Usability - what the web does well
All this got me to thinking about usability in the car journey back to my office. The thing is, most big websites these days are ridiculously easy to use. It seems the efforts of Jakob Nielsen and the User Interface Engineering people have had a real effect.

OK - so we all still happen upon appalling website. For example, my 68 year old step-father recently asked me to book a couple of holidays for him. These were very expensive trips, and yet there was no summary if the itinerary on the "make a payment" page. In other words, there was no way of telling if we'd made a mistake entering the trip dates, and were perhaps about to pay thousands for the wrong holiday.

Result? We had to start the whole process again - V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y.

Web usability vs. real world usability
I've often trumpeted the claim that it's easier to accomplish some tasks by talking to a person over the phone or turning up in person - as opposed to using a website. Take filing my UK tax return for example. For me, it's easier to hand everything to my accountant. The alternative is to request security PIN numbers, create accounts and all sorts of other nonsense.

Real world=easier.

I'm sure this will change. And don't get me wrong - the web is fantastic for some tasks, like comparing car insurance quotations, buying airline flights (gotta love BA.com) and even comparing the price of new cars.

Some products are a pig to use
Hang on a minute. It's not just the web that has problems. Some real world products are horribly difficult to use.

Petrol usability horrors
Want an example? I pulled into a petrol station today, waiting a good while to get a pump on the same side as my petrol cap. The customer in front of me couldn't get the first pump to work, so he edged his car forward to the next one. I moved forward too, then got out of the car to ask him if the pump was faulty. He said it wasn't pumping any petrol - but it looked like the second pump was proving just as reluctant.

Then I noticed a sign on both these pumps: "PRE-PAY PUMPS ONLY. MAKE PAYMENT BEFORE PUMPING FUEL"... or words to that bureaucratic effect. By this time, the first customer has given up. I go into the petrol station and speak to the cashier. I ask how this works. She tells me I have to pay in advance (buying, say, £30 of petrol...)

"Oh", I say, "does it just stop pumping when I've reached £30, then?". Some chance. In fact, you have to pump the precise amount that you've paid for - and we all know how tricky that is. Go under the amount and you've paid too much. Go over and you have to hot-foot it back to the cashier to settle the balance.

Bonkers.

How on earth is that good for the customer? First of all, the sign on the pump didn't include clear instructions - and it wasn't flagged-up at all when I joined the queue of cars. Thinking about the web, it's a bit like not showing where a link will take you - then confusing the heck out of the customer with an unfamiliar procedure.

Toshiba Gigabeat
I bought a Toshiba Gigabeat MP3 player last summer - after years of resisting an iPod.

I liked the fact that it had a large hard drive, colour screen and neat design. The sound quality is fabulous too.

Oh, and I was really keen on downloading tracks from Napster using Napster-to-go. This is a subscription service: for around £15 per month, you can download as much legal music as your hard drive can carry. The only downside (and it's a big one) is that you can only listen to this music if you keep paying the subscription.

Getting tracks onto the Gigabeat is a grim affair. The Toshiba software is prone to crashing, even on my brand new high-spec PC. And as for transferring the tracks from Napster? Horrible. Slow, painful and inconsistent - it was more trouble than it was worth. I just want to download my music onto the PC and have my MP3 player sync with it automatically. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.

And another thing - the Gigabeat's menu system isn't intuitive in the slightest. After a bit of practice I can get it working pretty well, but other family members find it a chore. For me, an MP3 player should be easy to use straight out of the box. Needless to say, the Gigabeat's now on eBay. Once it's sold, I'm buying a video iPod.

Rant over
Maybe the petrol station owner and Toshiba should go on a web usability course. Because just as I don't re-visit poor websites, I won't be using customer-confusing petrol stations or MP3 players again.