Usability Forum

More on web page ambiguity: What's your user's mindset?

By Eddie. Wednesday, 12. April 2006, 20:52:58

usability, websites, ambiguity, bad design

While I was responding to perfect_blue_rollie's interesting question (or test rather) about the weather, I noticed another one of those "ambiguity" type stumbling blocks that has tripped my browsing up once or twice before.

Whenever I go to weather.com and throw my zipcode in the first text box I see, I always end up with strange information like- ski related information, or, in this case, my "petcast." Why is the most visible text field not the primary weather search field? The one on the top of the page doesn't stand out nearly as much as the pet one. The petcast is both bigger, and more centrally located right in the page's "sweet spot." Am I the only one that goes to sites like this and immediately looks for a place to type my zipcode? If we form "impressions" in 1/20th of a second on pages that we don't really have an pre-concieved notion of, how does that relate to when we know before had what to expect? I know that if I'm going to that page to get weather for my area- I'm going to need to tell it where I am.

I only bring that up, because: yes. It clearly says "Four Legged Forcast" in gigantic font. But my position is that those words don't even really get read by me. My eyes are immediately drawn to that zip code box since that's the only thing I'm intrested in. The same would apply to movie times or store locators. Those sites could have information revealing the second conspirator on the grassy knoll and I can't imagine I would notice.

I guess I'm being too picky on this one. Especially since (apart from a picture of a pet and an extra tab) I can't see too big of a difference between the petcast and the normal forcast. But you can't tell me your eyes aren't drawn to the petcast. I want eye tracking studies done on all of you!

(I know, I know- I did just bookmark the page so I don't have to go through the main page again)

Screenshot of the whole weather.com page (as I saw it) since (with my luck) it will probably change.

EDIT- This screenshot unfairly has the "Enter zip code..." string missing from the top box. It's there by default. I'm not trying to skew the usability in this post's favor.

OK/Cancel on handling your business Unfulfilled customer expectations

Comments

perfect_blue_rollie # 13. April 2006, 15:11

hi, i would definitely frame my 'weather question' as invitation to an experiment more than a test - really - i was posting a little bit in a hurry and afterwards i thought you may feel as being tested or tricked which was totally not my intention. it would have been perfect if i had clarified this in the first place (explain 'the weather question' in the original comment). so, my post was an example of bad (incomplete) design, too.

(and I guess this one has grammar issues)

and to your current post - i guess it has sth to do with money and advertising. i bet that it would turn out that its very dangerous to walk my dog today, unless he has this new anti-allergic medicine advertised two clicks away (where i presumably land after typing in zip code in the center box). they must know its twisted - they just want it that way. of course i can imagine that the designer was trying to do his\her best here.

Eddie # 13. April 2006, 15:30

I intended it to mean more of "experiment" than test. I didn't feel tricked, I thought it was clever and I liked it.

Plus, we got Jarod Spool from UIE (the folks that authored those documents/posts that I linked to in that post) to offer his thoughts, so that was more than worth it to me

Anonymous # 20. April 2006, 21:13

infrandom writes:

Even as an "advanced" computer user I always hesitate to select the right box on weather.com... I can't imagine how that must work for a "user."