Credibility, Not Usability
By David Golding
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Jakob Nielsen has been preaching usability on the net for years now. The problem with his method and theory is that it doesn’t establish credibility at all. Sure, in the words of Richard Culatta, a site designed using his standards will work on a cell phone, a PDA, a TV, and probably even a blender, on top of web browsers. But sales are made through both usability and credibility.
For instance, what tells the user that they can trust your system? What sets it apart from all the other noise out there on the net? Yes, they can navigate the site through and through and reach whatever they want, but what convinces them that there is a certain level of business trust that they will be willing enough to pump their credit card number through it? We have learned enough by now just how easily some people are suckered into phishing schemes and identity theft ploys. Your site, hopefully, will position itself as a credible business source, a place where any internet user can safely transact business without getting manipulated.
I support credibility over usability. Unless your site is purely for personal reasons, you have to establish some levels of credibility, especially since the internet is home to anybody’s brain child without regulations. If you insist on high standards of usability on your site, let me recommend Steve Krug’s Advanced Common Sense method. It is much more practical for business folk than Jakob Nielsen doctrine.
To brush up on some well-researched credibility guidelines, jump on over to Standford University’s Web Credibility Research site. An invaluable resource for both web design and search engine optimization is their Top Ten List of guidelines to establish credibility.
I’ve compared these guidelines to effective sites that improve upon simple usability standards and establish credibility. Most of the cutting-edge “web 2.0″ sites have borrowed extensively from good design practices as well as effective credibility guidelines.
Guideline no. 1 emphasizes making it easy to verify the accuracy of information posted on the site. Digg is a fabulous working example of this. The internet community votes on the validity of articles and postings. The principle is established by the visibility of that voting: next to every link, there is a number posted of how many users have “digged” the information. The higher the number, the more valid the link, in theory. Users can easily gauge what is important and what isn’t.
Whoa, I’m running out of time here. I’ll continue this one with the other guidelines, if y’all would like. But just notice that establishing credibility really does drive sales more than usability. Let usability be a corrective measure once credibility is well-established.
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