Category Archives: usability

Facebook – helpful?

Facebook - helpful?

Usually Facebook is one of the more unhelpful sites I use regularly – a confusing mess of undercooked noodles that I pry apart to find the thing I want. I love that I don’t get any spam in my Facebook inbox and I used it a lot for email with friends.

I’m helping a high school friend plan her wedding at San Francisco City Hall in a couple weeks (she’s flying in from Florida! Yay!) and we’ve been planning via Facebook messages. I was looking for the Facebook message where she said what she and her bride-to-be are going to wear.

Click, back button, click, back button, scroll, back button, and so on. Then I noticed that Facebook had planted a helpful yellow message at the top of my Inbox after a few back/forths – I’ve never seen the search box for messages before – cool!

Plurk, Twitter, Cauliflower

I’ll sign up for anything. I use twitter daily. I’ve signed up for multiple other microblogging (“stalking”) apps and noticed most of them are lacking an important feature: people search. If I want to find my friends on, for example, twitter or plurk, then I’m required to give the web app access to my email addressbook. Where’s the easy search for someone by username or full name or profile words? I don’t want my addressbook scanned or spammed.

Help your users feel smart

Users of web sites, web applications, software, gadgets, and so on, do not really want to read your FAQ or go on your tour, or watch your video of how to use your web site, or contact your customer service.  They want to figure out how to use it by using it.  Going to the help section or reading a FAQ makes some people feel stupid.  Make your users smart.  Make your design obvious and easy so they can figure out how to use it and return to your site without trepidation.