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February 14, 2000

Web-Site Usability:
Walk-Through: A Usability Experiment

By Donald A. Norman

magine that you want to buy an ink-jet printer for your home office. Naturally, you might check out the Web sites of several leading printer vendors: Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com), Canon (www.canon.com), and Epson (www.epson.com). I tried it as an experiment and one word quickly came to mind: frustration. Here's what I found.

Hewlett-Packard
Printers and printing supplies are the main source of income for Hewlett-Packard. Be-cause so many people turn to HP's Web site for information, I expected that ink-jets would be there, presumably in a prominent location. But there was nary a word about printers. It's a guessing game, so I guessed "Home & Home Office."

Worse, on my way to Home & Home Office, I was waylaid by a new window with a questionnaire that blocked the screen. Hey, folks--I want to buy a printer, not answer your questions. If you want answers to those questions, make it an option I can select, not an intrusion on my workspace.

In real life, I would have quit at this point. First, HP made me unsure that I was embarking down the right path. Second, it thrust an irrelevant questionnaire in my face. But this was an experiment, so I stuck with it.

I got closer: The next page had "color printers" as an option. I clicked once more (click three, counting the one to get rid of the questionnaire). Oops, now I was confronted with meaningless pull-down menus that ask which of numerous unintelligible product numbers I want to learn about. I gave up, because I didn't know what the product numbers meant.

Maybe HP's product managers understand the numbers, but not me. Do I want a DeskJet 970 Cse or a Cxi? Or a 952C? Isn't it HP's job to describe its product line and recommend a model to me? Certainly, but the Web designers at HP almost certainly didn't consider how a customer would react to this introduction. I had to use the pull-down menus to look at each printer in turn, try to remember the characteristics, and then decide. Not a chance. Goodbye HP--it's off to Epson. But no, even after I have decided to leave, there's one more hurdle: It turns out HP had opened up a new window, so I couldn't even back out. I had to use yet another mouse click to get rid of that unwanted window. Has HP ever watched real customers try to use its site? I doubt it.

Epson
Two clicks and I had a list of all of Epson America Inc.'s printers, with a short description. One more click and I had technical information on the one listed under "Printer Boasts Blazing Speeds"; from there, two more clicks got me to the Epson printers section at Microwarehouse, where I could order a product. Unfortunately, I had just decided to buy the Epson Stylus Color 900, but that particular printer wasn't listed. Click, back to PC Mall: Yes, they show the printer. Epson did OK, but not Microwarehouse: PC Mall would have won my business.

Canon
If HP was bad, Canon Inc. seems to have little interest in selling printers at all. Canon's home page does have a link for product information, which takes you to the Canon site in Japan. There was no hint of a color printer on that page, but it did direct me to a North American Canon site, which had a small- and home-office product link. Four more clicks and I finally arrived a the page that showed every Canon bubble-jet printer, with almost nothing in the way of descriptions. I surrendered.

Amazon.com
My experience with the printer companies was so bad that, out of curiosity, I decided to try my favorite book site: Amazon.com Inc. "Hello Donald A. Norman" the first page said, "We have recommendations for you."

I ignored the recommendations, tempting as they were, and typed "ink-jet" into the search window prominently displayed near the top of the screen. In one click, I got a page that showed a formatted list of ink-jet printers, described them, listed the price, shipping time, and a customer rating for each item. Is it any wonder that I continually return to Amazon. com, and continually buy from the site?

Why is it the printer companies can't do as good a job of making their products available to customers as a bookstore? I suppose these printer companies don't care about consumers; they sell mainly to distributors. Amazon.com does care--and it shows. But the printer companies are forgetting something important. Let the distributor or point-of-purchase site do the recommendation, and you have just lost control. The recommendation could well be for your competition.

Return to main story, "Usability On The Web Isn't A Luxury."

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