I’m a new reader; a web designer who’s a home sewer. I was really pleased to see this entry as there are a LOT of really bad sites out there, although I haven’t seen as many bad DE sites as I have bad craft sites–there’s some truly awful remnants of the 1990s out there.

I took the quiz you linked, and as a usability student found that it was pretty industry standard. I have to wonder if you’re looking at the “expert review” issue in the proper context–an expert review isn’t conducted by an expert internet user, but by a usabilty expert. They’ve been in the industry, have done the user studies with actual users and know the common flaws. When they do an expert review, they’re making the first pass at making your site functional by eliminating all the stuff that they already know (based on that experience) will be a problem.

From what I’ve read on your blog, it’s more akin to you looking at a pattern and knowing that it won’t work based on the sleeve shaping or lack of interfacing, etc, or “proving” it (I think that’s the right term). Ideally, I’d do an expert review first (fast, could be cheap depending on the expert), THEN do user testing with real users, which can take a great deal of time. When we do the user testing, we try to find the internet expert users and the novices (in my case, my mother..), and if we’re able, people who are in the site’s target demographic.

If there’s interest, I could post some examples I’ve done for school.

Anyhow, thanks for your informative site; my passion is in a totally different industry, but you’ve made me stop and really think about things I was in the habit of complaining about without really thinking them through (sizing and fit being chief among them).

I thought you might find this article interesting. The author is much more articulate than I am on the subject of Expert Reviews and how they compliment User Testing.

On shopping sites, I cannot stand when there’s no breadcrumb trail…so I can see where I am at all times and can navigate however I like, not just forward or backward. If I have to “backout” of a product listing by more than 3 clicks to get back to a main shopping menu or another sublevel, then I’m done! Here’s an example of a breadcrumb trail on my own site. Look in the left corner, below the header. This is as “deep” as you can go, but you can go back to whichever level you choose easily!

Ditto with music, it woke up a sleeping baby far, far too often.

Oh, and here’s a personal pet peeve, for anyone who has online shopping: Don’t. Make. Me. Accept. Cookies. OK, let me modify that. Cookies are OK once I actually decide to shop for things. A clear statement (like, before I enter the shopping cart, or below the “Add This Item to Cart” button) that says “Cookies are necessary to place an order/add to the cart/etc.”, is OK. If it’s legible, and I want to buy, I’ll deal with the cookies. BUT, please don’t be like Old Navy used to be and require me to accept your cookies before even browsing the website. Pretty please?

Hmm, can you tell you hit a small nerve?

gratuitous animation
With animations you get the all the wonderful injuries of the blink tag with the added insult of the graphics download time. People who abuse these should have flip books rammed into every bodily orifice until they figure out that a two- or three-frame graphics loop is even less pleasant than that.