26 Comments
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Yep.
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We should start a company called, “Grandma-proof.”
Grandma-proof™ assembles an awesome collection of Grandmas who know just about enough to turn on a computer and use a mouse. They will test your site and reduce you to tears.
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like the mobile phones that have the dial tone, for folks that are used to hearing that when they pick up a phone. What is the dial tone of the internet? Probably a lot more Windows-oriented than you would prefer. My mom would prefer that your site have a start button.
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It also takes keen awareness of your audience. There is a certain amount of willful disregard or omission (just say buttons – some people simply don’t understand that you can click on them, unless you say click here, but most of us would be willing to concede that putting “Click Here” next to every single button is a worthwhile willful omission).
There’s ignorance and there’s stupidity … and we need to build for ignorance. Maybe. I might also know nothing.
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Yep x 2
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Grandma-proof™ assembles an awesome collection of Grandmas who know just about enough to turn on a computer and use a mouse. They will test your site and reduce you to tears.
People would pay good money for that. Do it!
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How very true. I suppose I’m guilty of it too, but I find it incredibly hard to constantly consider that users may not ‘understand’ a seemingly simple concept that I’m trying to translate.
Thanks for the thought-provoking article Joshua!
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WHAT? Where’s my wall?? @#A I came here and logged onto the facebook and now I can’t see my frienz piccturess!
p.s. I completely agree. Especially on the snarky IE6/”insert war of choice” flaming of your users. Discuss/argue with individuals in person/email/etc about that but don’t carpet-bomb your entire audience who don’t know any different.
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I have to say this is spot on. Working for a small design house in central Florida has taught me quite a bit about users. A larger percentage of our users type URL’s into the search bar on their home page, and believe that Google and their browse are one in the same.
All of this knowledge we obtain is not for the purpose of belittling users. It is an easy trap for new designers to fall into, they attack users because they want to use new tools and concepts. But in every field there is a challenge, in web design it is engaging our users with the technology they understand. We must craft experiences using our knowledge of the web to help our users.
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Agreed. I always say: “Design for people way stupider than you.”
Not that said visitors are actually stupid, they’re just uninterested. Our visitors could be physicists, professors, or doctors, but that doesn’t mean they have any interest in HTML5 or fancy navigations that require arrow keys, etc. Designing websites for other designers is a great exploration, but it’s terrible for the 98% of people that are unfamiliar.
My goal is always to dress up the basics. Give your content some space to breathe, and make your navigation simple, but you have plenty of freedom with texture, color, layout, etc.
We shouldn’t feel limited by our users. The website, as you said, isn’t for you. It’s for them. You just made it.
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Great post. Maybe this is fodder for another post entirely, but I’ve been thinking lately a lot about degrading, or even responsive design architecture—but NOT in the way those terms are used in out industry. We usually use those terms technically to mean that things degrade in less functional browsers, or move around on the screen depending on screen-size.
What I’m talking about is the idea that the core set of features for any given site (depending on audience, of course), should pass the “Grandma Test” – but beyond that, you can add several more layers of additional help, shortcuts, whizz-bang, etc. as long as it doesn’t compromise the site’s core functionality.
If you think about it, this is what good software design has always been about. If you can find the Edit menu, you can find Copy and Paste, but if you’re geeky enough to care what the weird symbols on the right of the menu are, you now can use keyboard shortcuts.
I’ve also been thinking that this applies well in adapting to new mediums, like the iPad. These days, in most of my designs, there is a way to execute a given feature with bigger buttons that work well on a touch-pad and don’t require hover-states. That said, I might add other ways/shortcuts that work easily with a mouse, but I’ve not compromised the site’s functionality, nor have I had to do a completely separate site for other devices. It’s a way of design thinking that is more responsive to a given situation/user than anything else.
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Unrelated, but related: My 9 year old loves to watch people playing different piano pieces on YouTube. His method of searching is to use the browsers search bar and type “YouTube Mozart concerto 21″.
I imagine this method of searching is true for a vast majority of internet users. But then again most of us aren’t building a site with 1/100000th the scope, diversity of users as YouTube. Or at least, I’m not.
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Semi-unrelated, I like the way that you are allowing the Editorial Layout to infiltrate a lot of your design lately (see: Your new footnotes & Newspring’s Stories).
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In addition to Grandma-proof™, someone like me would be interested in an “Internet Use for Dummies” that teaches the casual web-user all the handy short-cuts you gurus take for granted. Some notable ones I would have never known about had my lovely Mr. Blankenship not taught me (and which I now use ALL the time): ⌘X, ⌘C, ⌘V, ⌘T, ⌘~, ⌘tab, Ctrl+click, shift+option+_, option+n, option+e. If I had more time with my 60-something parents, I’d teach them the same, and I bet they’d teach their friends. And internet smarts would grow exponentially! Or so the optimists think.
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Hey Josh,
I’m prone to *slightly* disagree with some of this.
In your analogy of the house, I’d first ask “Who’s this for?” If the house is for modern tourists, then yes, no one is thinking that hard. But back when that house was built, people *we’re* thinking that hard. They used marble to impress people, make the house look more stately & refined and give off the presence of wealth. The marble was an important tool the architect used to convey these messages … and most likely, in combination with all the other stuff, it worked.
Naz is 100% correct, we still have “a lot” of work to do. But, I think the other examples are slightly misleading. When there were 2000+ comments on the page wondering how to access Facebook, Facebook had how many users? Maybe 300,000,000? That’s .0006% of people that left a comment. Now of course we can assume many more hit the page than actually commented, but still… My guess is that’s insignificant. Not to mention, searching for Facebook login isn’t exactly stupid behavior and it’s really Google’s fault if there’s an issue with the top result not being what most people are looking for.
On the Times Square example, I haven’t seen anywhere where they stated they asked those 50 people in a row. My guess is they asked hundreds and chose 50 of the dumbest answers to make a point. Which is great, it highlights the extreme. And it causes us to think. But certainly, is someone who has *no* idea what a browser is our target market? The answer depends.
Which is really my point, is that everything has to be in context. If you’re making a service for techie people, then probably using cool technologies and not supporting IE6 isn’t so bad of a thing. But if you’re making a general service, or targeting an older generation, then perhaps IE6 users or “I don’t know what a browser is” users are *precisely* your target market.
Saying “learning about the web and how technology works is *not* normal” I don’t think is quite true. My 2 year old knows how to use an iPhone. Not because she’s strange, but because this is the generation she’s growing up in, where these things exist and are common place. Just like how I knew how to ride a bike when I was a kid, because they’re common now. I’d say most people under the age of 25 especially understand these type of things because they were taught in their primary, middle and secondary schools. Not to mention higher educated people that went to college almost certainly did not attain any degree without some fundamental understanding of the web, the way it works and “what a browser is”.
Sure, we’re in a strange place right now where over 30 types probably don’t, neither do they care. And if that’s the target market of your site, then taking that into account is a must.
But … I’d suggest a more balanced statement. Not “Stop building websites for you” but rather “Make sure you’re taking your target market into account when building a website”.
You write about web technology on this blog. If I were you, instead of asking “Would my grandma know how to “open navigation” I’d be asking “Why would my grandma even be here reading this content?” and “Am I targeting Grandmas?”
Further reading:
Josh Brewer, “You are not your user” http://52weeksofux.com/post/385981879/you-are-not-your-user
Jared Spool, “Actually, you might be your user” http://www.uie.com/articles/self_design/
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OK. So, I’m sort of a Grandma, and I have learned a great deal about techy stuff–some by design (pun intended), and some by default (not sure if pun intended). I do not need to know it all to use some–and I would like to know more to use more effectively what I do know–and do more of what I want to do on my own–like how to get my recalcitrant printer, which refuses to do anything but code-speak, to talk words to my adolescently resistant computer, which refuses to accept any efforts to assist communication–or do my own blog.
But some sites reduce one to tears simply because they are poorly contrived and ARROGANT–needlessly techy–purposefully techy–both in appearance and simply in voice. Some sites are so elegantly simple that the beauty of them–both in design for the eyes and hands and mind–reduces one to tears.
That said, many Grandmas of my generation are not as inept, uninterested, or stupid as one might think. We could however be ignorant of much. We are probably more closet tech junkies than one might think. We just might not have had the funds to upgrade as quickly as technology has, the opportunity or funds to grab said technology and associated gadgets, or the unashamed audacity to grab a techy and say, “Would you sit still for 15 minutes and explain this one thing that I can’t quite figure out on my own that I read in the Manual for Tech Dummies?”
Or, having found such a Tech Guru, find the aforementioned arrogance–someone who cannot in their wildest imagination believe that anyone could actually be ignorant of any of the steps of learning that they themselves had to master many short years ago. That in their own learning curves, albeit short as they may have been, that ignorance did exist–forgotten resentment at being considered stupid as they tried to learn from anyone willing to teach them as they soaked up knowledge from anyone willing to spend even a moment or gigabyte of interest in them.
As an RN, I have a language that is purely clinical–a language with which I am very familiar, and one with which I can converse with any MD, anywhere, anytime, and be understood. It would not matter whether he or she was someone with 50 years of experience of 70. We would be equals with reference to communication. If I put together a PowerPoint presentation for one of them, it would be detailed, and loaded with medspeak–probably. But it wouldn’t be me.
If I were going to put together a website, whether for a 70 year MD or a patient with an 8th grade education, it would be factual, funny, and completely user friendly because its purpose–my purpose–would be to inform the person using it–period. And that probably would not be MDs. Purpose over show-off. If you want to show off, do it on your own time, with clearly defined audience. If you want to have a great website, make sure anybody who wants to benefit from the CONTENT actually can.
Whew–I’m done now. Just waded through too many CRAPPY web sites lately–especially medical ones–for patients no less. Maybe I need to do one. Hmmmmmm. About that blog–
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@Josh Well said as our targeted audience really varies. We cannot hinder the pushing forward because some people don’t know a certain pattern, and in the same way, we should not be hindered on making things beautiful, or focusing attention elsewhere by using low contrast.
I’d suppose that there are many grandma’s who wouldn’t be able to read your footer titles, or body copy either, as well as content on my site. But my grandma probably wouldn’t be reading an article called “Stop building websites for you” and thus I’d be more concerned with creating that stands out to the majority of users that are coming to your site.
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So it all comes down to usable simplicity then, no?
A website that functions says mountains more about the designer than a website that has a lot of flare.
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I never wanted a t-shirt as bad as a Comic Sans set Grandma-Proof™ t-shirt. Or maybe set in those felt, Cooper Black iron-on letters.
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I’m with you Renaud! (I couldn’t wear it of course. I would have an odd connotation in my case.) Know anyone who does T-shirts? I do….Should it have a tiny keyboard beneath? Or maybe a mouse dangling from the “f” ?
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I bumped into a “web designer” kid at the coffee shop the other day who told a client, after the client noticed that the site looked funny on his browser, to simply upgrade his browser. This article reminded me of that.
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@Josh and @Anthony
I completely agree and I’m glad somebody added this to the discussion. While usability is clearly the priority, in most cases I don’t think “universal usability” should be the goal. Depending on your market, some reasonable (in my eyes) assumptions have to be made as to the base skill-set of your visitors, no? There aren’t signs at the grocery store that say “Make sure you stop at the checkout and pay.”
Good read!
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Mr. Blankenship, my Grandma wants to know why the top of your website has teeny-tiny dark gray type on a black background that reads, “Save time with Formstack’s online form builder. No coding or programming needed.”
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If you are a front-end developer or a graphic designer, does your next job depend on ROI and/or the usage heat-map OR does it matter how pretty the site is and the Flash/JavaScript slide show on the homepage?
Since I do not often have a stake in the value return of the sites that I create, it is a temptation to focus on the people I want to impress: my creative director, my client, and my geek friends.
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Hi Josh,
Just wanted to say, love your blog. Its like a breath of fresh air. You’re not just another developer or designer tearing down everybody else and I think you see things with a realistic perspective.
I love what you said about IE6 and it just reminds me of other developers I know who seem to hate their users rather than want to help them. Its tough trying to translate the web for a large public who clearly misunderstand the concepts of the web more than we thought, but its a fresh perspective so thanks!
Stop Building Websites For You*
Wed 10/06/10
On a November day in 2006, I took my then-girlfriend, now-wife to see as much of the 175,000 sq ft of the The Biltmore House as we could in a day. I distinctly recall it being obscenely cold. We looked ridiculous in all the photos we took, teeth chattering, bundled to our ears in enormous, ineffective scarves.
And then, during a slightly-warmer indoor tour, “You’ll of course notice that these thresholds are marble. Throughout the residence, any room that has running water, any wet room—bathrooms, showers, kitchens, even the indoor pool—is denoted by a marble threshold instead of the standard wooden ones elsewhere in the house.”
Actually, I didn’t notice it. Who would? It’s a threshold. No one is thinking that hard1. They just want to walk through doorways and get things done. Like normal people.
Which makes me think about the way we build websites.
There aren’t many professional web designers I respect as much as Naz. And he’s dead-on with this critique. Read Write Web wrote an article on Facebook logins that was the #1 Google result for “facebook login” for awhile. “WTF is this bullshttttttttttt all about. can i get n plzzzzzzzzz,” is typical of the 2000+ comments on that article from people who, obviously, had a ritual of searching for “facebook login” instead of typing in a URL (what’s a URL, anyway? they might say), or saving a bookmark. Google interviewed 50 Times Square passersby and asked the question, “what is a browser?” The answers were somewhat less-than-encouraging, especially for those of us who get obsessed with pushing the boundaries of design and interaction on the web2.
Everything we take for granted, every stride we make in learning more about the web, our computers, how technology works, etc. is not normal. You are not your audience, at least not all of the seats. When we design websites for us, we confuse more people than we help. For every “you’re an idiot for using IE6″ footer message I see on some young designer’s totally awesome CSS3+HTML5+JQuery whizbang website, there are at least 50 people walking around IN NYC who don’t even have a framework to respond for why you think they’re an idiot—not that they’d ever come to your website. (Which begs the question, who exactly are you writing that cleverly scathing footer copy for anyway? But that’s a post for another day…)
Take this site for example; it was a fairly basic, three-column grid with a minimum of images. It had been this way for three years. But would my grandma know what the “open navigation” link meant up there in the righthand corner? Would she have clicked on it? Would she have even seen it? How would she know there was more content hidden away under a Javascript slider? Because I did? I vote unlikely, so I changed it.
Make great work, but keep in mind who you’re supposed to be making it for.
*Unless you want to build websites for you.
1. Except maybe architects. ↩
2. I’m super-excited that there are people pushing the boundaries of web design and technology. It’s amazing to watch. I geek out. Just don’t forget we’re all freaks; we’re not normal people. ↩