Russ and I went over to the BayCHI event this evening, which included a presentation about running a usability study for mobile services. Here are the five distilled best practices that came out of the data Scott has been collecting:
- Use familiar names as labels for the options. Call the options “Ringtones” or “Downloads”. Using names like “T-Zones” or “Get It Now” just causes confustion.
- Allow purchase from the media list. When the users sees a list of wallpapers they have, there should be an option right there to fine more.
- Link to the download from the web site. People launch the browser to go looking for stuff to download, they should see the option right there. Example given was Verizon, there is no link to the Verizon store from the VZW website.
- Always start the browser on the same page. It seems like people might switch away from the browser and return to their task, but in reality this causes confusion for most users.
- Include previews. Of course people want to see what the image will look like and hear part of the ringtone before they purchase.
I disagree with the “Always start the browser on the same page.” On a slow loading page, I will switch back to an ebook, or email, etc.
To have the browser go back to the homepage would be a complete frustration.
Another example.
I’m reading a long news article on a site. I read half of it on my way in to work in the morning and don’t use the browser for the rest of my work day. Once on the train home, i launch the browser again to continue reading the article. With the “home page always” approach, I’ve lost the site I was reading, and also my place in it.
How is this a good thing?
The tips are meant to encourage usability for the average user. You can come up with examples where following the the tip would inconvenience you, that’s really irrelevant however. I’m sure the designers who make browsers that resume on the last page had exactly that usage pattern in mind, and it seemed most intuitive to them. But they were wrong, at least according to the study Scott did. The tip is there because of all the people surveyed the general response was that starting the browser on the page they left off on was confusing.
Well in that case, I think a simple checkbox in the prefs of the app for “Always start with homepage” would cover both camps.