World usability day: Free usability review
Next thursday Nov 8th is World usability day, and there are events all over the world.
For you folks online, just like year’s past I’m offering the first 10 people who leave a comment a free expert usability review of the website they post (it doesn’t have to be their own website).
How to get a free expert usability review:
- Leave a comment, include your e-mail address and a URL.
- If you’ve got a specific problem or user scenario you’re worried about, mention it.
- If you’re in the top 10, I’ll post your review online.
- If you’re after #10, be creative. If you make me laugh you might get yours too.
Bonus: If you work on stuff for cell phones or mobile devices, Sender11, a mobile design expert, is offering free usability reviews for you.
Definitely interested in what you bring to the table. (email/url in comment…)
Take a look at z.iwethey.org/forums/render/forum/show?forumid=1
The backstory is that back in 1999 Infoworld Electric had online forums. There were usability issues, and a Y2K problem that they couldn’t solve because they didn’t have the source code for their own forum.
At about the same time those two issues were coming to a head, IWE Online held a reader survey for best network operating system. When OS/2 was winning in a landslide, management unilaterally declared that readers were “stuffing the ballot box” and declared NT4 the winner.
There was a mass defection to a free forum host, followed by a brand new forum written by one of the regulars in a mad three-day fit of coding. The site above is the result. (After a few years of minor tweaks and upgrades.)
It is still IMO one of the easiest-to-use forums I have seen.
I would love to get a review of iiba.asicanda.net before we relaunch the site.
I’ve created a simple website allowing people to book online for parking spots in a parking not far from Geneva’s airport (Switzerland). The idea of course is to make it dead-easy to use, but I might have made some usability errors. Any feedback will be more than welcome! Thanks in advance.
Scott, you might want to fix the link to “World usability day” in your post.
But I suppose you could just be having a little joke with us?
Mine is my author’s site, which I designed myself. I’d love someone to give me a crit on it. http://www.ginablack.net
Seeing as how I do my own HTML coding, it tends to always be in transition.
Oh yes, and how about a review of my Simply Google site?
http://www.usabilityviews.com/simply_google.htm
Hi Chris: Oh yes, of *course* I was joking. I’d never make a typo or mistake around here :) Fixed now.
It’s a site I created for me. When I showed it to clients, they just didnt like it.
I’d love to see a review of the new Free the Slaves site: http://freetheslaves.net — they’re a nonprofit that fights human trafficking worldwide, and they’ve just completed a redesign. (And I used to be a staff member there–still do work for them, freelance, too…)
Hi Scott, we’d love you to look at Anytime Costumes. Thanks!
Despite being the 12th commenter, I think I may still qualify as the 10th URL. Would you please do http://www.mercatus.org. Thanks!
Hi Scott, I’ve got a very small website at http://people.debian.org/~francois/email-reminder/index.html promoting an Open Source side-project of mine and I would be interested to know what kind of usability tips you might give to small sites like these.
http://www.kazavr.com
I would love to get review from the expert! Thank you!
Hi Scott –
I’m #15, but how about supporting a local Seattle company: CarDomain.com What’s cooler than the interweb? Cars. And we’ve got ’em.
Our site has been around for 9 years and has grown in an organic/frankensteinish manner. I am sure you will have plenty of fun with it.
I don’t want to taint your assessment by telling you what our site does. Here’s some of our issues:
1) the home page. does the hp clearly communicate what the site is about, what you can do here, and why it should be one of your favorites?
2) user generated content pages. We’re very long tail, and our user pages are the most common entry point from search engines. Similar issues with the HP..do new visitors landing on these pages understand the content and are encouraged to browse around the site.
3) Search/Browse concerns. Is it easy and intuitive to browse our massive collection of user generated content.
Please consider us! I’ve been a fan of your writing since the Art of PM. Thanks!
http://bookvar.net – any comments are welcome :)
Too easy to point at the morass of corporate structure and politics, but the Healthcare portal at Dell is about to get an overhaul. Problem is our team is tasked with making everything within “global” templates.
HC is going to split their current audience into Heathcare (Payor/Provider) and Life Sciences (Pharma/Research). I cannot merely blow up the entire site, I have to work within exsiting frameworks, but want to create a new user-centered design to segement the two audiences directly to their content.
Thanks,
JM
Are blogs eligible for this? My blog is 7 months old, and I have accumulated 239 posts (as of today) and 287 different tags. Oy.
I’ve tried to organize things with index posts, such as a Recipe Index, here and there.
I’ve also tried to collect similar posts into groups, using links on the sidebar.
Yet, simple, elegant, useful navigation remains elusive.
By the way, I loved Myths of Innovation, and I really respect your opinion. I even made my 15 year old son – who aspires to be “an engineer, a businessman, a guy who invents stuff… or a professional baseball player” – watch your video presentation from Google Tech Talks. Twice.
I know that there are many people out there who need usability advice but dont have opportunity to purchase consultant.
So I created this service:
http://www.freeusabilityreview.com
I’ll do my best to help people who will submit websites there and may be other experts will join me later.
Nov 8th is World usability day? Huh..When did this happen? Apparently since 2005, I like their advocacy to ensure that services and products important to human life are easier to access and simpler to use. I’m in…
World usability day is coming soon in November right?
Looks like it’s THursday November 9th – http://worldusabilityday.org/