{"id":1669,"date":"2012-02-02T11:31:29","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T16:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/?p=1669"},"modified":"2012-02-02T15:47:19","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T20:47:19","slug":"usability-in-action-1-dont-offer-irrelevant-options-in-the-first-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/archives\/1669","title":{"rendered":"Usability in Action (1) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Offer Irrelevant Options in the First Place"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many assume that adding more information would automatically increase the usability of a website.\u00c2\u00a0 While there are cases in which this would be true,\u00c2\u00a0 often a better option is to make that needed information not necessary at all for a user to make the right choice in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

I found a good example recently at work. All state university libraries in Florida started allowing students in any state university to borrow from other state university library. This service was launched with the name, U-Borrow. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s faster than the traditional ILL (interlibrary loan). It also offers a longer borrowing period.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a great service for library user<\/p>\n

In order to advertise this service and make it easier for users to discover, the search result screen in the library catalog now shows the U-Borrow option as a link (as shown below).<\/p>\n

\"Search<\/a>

Search Result Screen from the Library Catalog<\/p><\/div>\n

If the user clicks the U-Borrow link, the computer presents the search search result done in the union catalog. This allows the user to see what state university library may have the item s\/he is looking for that is not available in her or his own university library, and to request the item from the closest library from his or her own.<\/p>\n

But there is one problem.\u00c2\u00a0 Since the original search in the user’s own library catalog was not restricted to a particular format, the U-borrow link also presents items in all formats that match including online resources(see below). But(!) the U-borrow service does ‘not’ apply to online resources.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Search Result from the Union Catalog<\/p><\/div>\n

So the current solution is to bring this information to a user’s attention when the user actually clicks any record for an online resource in the search result list.\u00c2\u00a0 See below the screenshot where it says “this item is not available through the UBorrow Service.”<\/p>\n

\"Catalog<\/a>

Catalog Record with a Note about U-Borrow Restriction<\/p><\/div>\n

This is a solution. But not the best solution. If a user gets to this page, s\/he is likely to just click the link on top and get frustrated instead of examining the record fully by scrolling down and recognize the note at the bottom.<\/p>\n

So in this case, the best solution would be to make the U-Borrow link in the first screenshot result in only the items available through the U-Borrow service. This will obviate the need for the user to heed later the note about certain items are not available. By removing irrelevant options in the first place, we can allow users to make the right choice without making a conscious choice.<\/p>\n

Can you think of similar examples like this? Guiding people to make the right choice by providing information is good. But all the better if the right choice can be automatically selected based upon the previous option.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many assume that adding more information would automatically increase the usability of a website.\u00c2\u00a0 While there are cases in which this would be true,\u00c2\u00a0 often a better option is to make that needed information not necessary at all for a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,13,10,130,7],"tags":[358,193,194,366,195,131],"class_list":["post-1669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-library","category-research","category-technology","category-usability","category-web","tag-library","tag-opac","tag-serach","tag-system","tag-u-borrow","tag-usability-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2AlrP-qV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1669"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1730,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1669\/revisions\/1730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bohyunkim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}