Consistent Labeling

There is nothing more disorienting than links labels that don’t match page titles. Imagine clicking a link called “Find Books” and ending up at a page called “Search The Library Catalogue”. After a while, your users might start associating their quest to find books with searching the catalogue, but why force them to make that cognitive leap when you can easily synchronize your link labels with your page titles? If the link says “Find Books”, that’s exactly what they should see (preferably in unapologetically large text) on the resulting page.

So, spend some time clicking around your site. Make sure the link labels you click on match the page titles that come up. If they don’t, change them.

Search

There is a usability theory out there that says that users only search a site when they can’t figure out how the site navigation works or when they lose the “scent” of what they’re looking for. While that might be true, in the strictest human-computer interaction sense, there is a whole subset of users who would rather just search your site to start with instead of clicking on navigation options. Blame Google.

If your library website doesn’t have a site search box, it should. Devote some template space to it so that users get used to seeing that search box in the same place on every page. Make the searchers happy and provide a simple wayfinding option at the same time.

Breadcrumbs

Think of breadcrumbs as the GPS of your website, the “You Are Here” marker that instantly orients users to where they are in your site’s architecture. Breadcrumbs are a perfect wayfinding tool because they provide a reminder to users about what section of the site they are in and how they got there.

If you don’t already have breadcrumbs on your site, there is no quick & dirty way to implement them unfortunately. But if you are using breadcrumbs, do a quick audit to make sure they are meaningful and provide some useful orientation to your users. Remember, your home page is not always the starting point for a lot of users (thank you, search engines), so make sure that every page has breadcrumbs that will also orient those who land on your site as a result of a search engine hit.

Next Up

#3: Online Library Card Application

• Drupal 7 User Experience Project
• the Drupal Redesign group on Flickr (complete with tantalizing wireframes and mock ups!)
• follow the #D7UX hashtag on Twitter

I’ve often wondered if the “close doors” button in elevators really do anything. Turns out that sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t but they do alter our perception of what’s happening.

For more on placebo buttons and the illusion of control, see the NYT article For Exercise in New York Futility, Push Button.

[pic via]