Usability v Searchability: Is it an Either/Or Proposition?
Last fall at Adobe Max we talked with Adaptive Path’s Jesse James Garrett about how to build Rich Internet Applications utilizing technologies like AIR and Flex while simultaneously making them underestandable and coherent to end users.
The issue isn’t just making them intuitive, but educating the public on what their purposes are, how they can be used, and, most importantly, what they can and cannot actually do.
For usability experts viewing from behind one-way mirrors, it’s watching Users struggle with the understanding that Webtop word processors behaves differently than desktop versions, that they do different things and that their underlying purpose is slightly different than what Users are used to.
In a sense, it’s about managing user expectations, and educating users on and about those expectations.
Take AIR apps. They sit on your desk but are literally Web applications connected to Web servers and sites. They just happen to live locally. So how do you convey that to an end-user? To Joe and Jane User they’ve just opened an application on their local machine and are wondering why it’s so different than any other desktop application on their machine.
So run some of the conundrums that designers face.
And here’s another: In an age where search is king, and Microsoft wants Yahoo! so it too can join the search kingdom, how do you balance the searchability of Rich Internet Applications with its usability.
For example, if a Flex solution provides better usability, but isn’t as searchable as something more traditional, and therefore isn’t as ‘findable’ by new potential customers, which way do you go? The internal business decision might run something like this:
- Argument: Well, Ajax doesn’t quite do what we want, but will get picked up by search engines and therefore we might get more customers.
- Counter-argument: True, but Flex will give us the experience we want, so word of mouth will drive more people to the site and therefore we’ll get more customers.
Anthony Franco, President, EffectiveUI, gives a partial solution in the video above. He suggests going with the more effective usability solution, and if that’s one that isn’t picked as readily by search engines, develop strategies that take that into account, but don’t sacrifice usability for the sake of searchability.
He suggests potentially blended solutions. One truly rich version of the application, and another that’s moderately rich. Or, you could assume, wrap the application in an HTML wrapper, complete with something like a regularly updated blog that discusses development, the application, issues and other whatnot important to the organization and development team.
That content will be picked up via search and gives us a Solomon solution to what shouldn’t necessarily be an either/or problem.
Michael Cervieri is Executive Producer of ScribeMedia.Org and an Adjunct Professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
Discussion
No comments for “Usability v Searchability: Is it an Either/Or Proposition?”
Post a comment