Google says “HELL NAH, MULTI-PAGE” and promises to provide results for view-all over paginated articles.
From the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Therefore, to improve the user experience, when we detect that a content series also contains a single-page version (e.g. page-all.html), we’re now making a larger effort to return the single-page version in search results. If your site has a view-all option, there’s nothing you need to do; we’ll work to do it on your behalf. Also, indexing properties, like links, will be consolidated from the component pages in the series to the view-all page.
This is welcome news for those of us who hate unnecessary pagination of an article. It’s a nice touch that Google’s post includes best practices for making pagination more usable (instead of doing what I’d do, which is to say, “HEY GUYS, your 12-page, 10-image post on the top quarterbacks of all time AIN’T GONNA CUT IT ANYMORE, YO.”)
But what about the pageviews? IS ANYBODY THINKING ABOUT THE PAGEVIEWS?
From Stevey’s Blog Rants comes this gem:
The newly-patented buying system guides users through an intuitive, step-by-step process of clicking “Buy It Now”, entering your password, logging in because they signed your sorry ass out again, getting upsold shit you don’t want, continuing to your original destination, accepting the default quantity of 1 (otherwise known as “It”), committing to buy, clicking “Pay Now”, entering a different password than your first one, clicking “Log In” again god dammit, declining to borrow money from eBay’s usury department, reviewing the goddamn purchase details since by now you’ve completely forgotten what the hell you were buying, and finally confirming the god damned payment already.
It wouldn’t be so funny, if it wasn’t so true. As Jason Santa-Maria says: “They’re practically writing Jared Spool‘s next presentation for him!”
Hey, let’s not get the idea that I only think about web passwords, because I don’t, despite this being the second consecutive blog post about web passwords.
But, you know, sometimes companies do it wrong.
Background: I sometimes forget passwords, especially those connected to sites I rarely visit. When that happens, I usually just click the “retrieve password” link. That’s what you do. That’s just how it’s done.
Often, password retrieval is a simple process. They send a message to the email associated with the account, and you click the link, and you reset the password, and then you get into your account, and hooray!
Perfect. Especially if you’re the only person with your email password. And ESPECIALLY if you’ve taken time to make a good email password, because that’s an ACTUAL account that deserves major protection, and one you should rarely forget because it’s YOUR EMAIL and there’s a good chance you have to enter the password every two days.
Other times, you’re required to answer a “security question” before getting your magic email. Such as “What is your dad’s middle name?” or “What is your waist size?” or “What did you drink the last time you threw up?” One question. Then, you get your password.
This is common with sites that need a lot of extra protection. Banks. Credit cards. Airline mile programs.
NO SERIOUSLY. Airline mile programs.
Enter Delta.
As with any airline-related web property, Delta’s site is bogged down with extraneous security and over-written drivel. It’s like one of those collections of legal books you see behind most personal injury lawyers has BLOWN UP and reanimated itself as a website.
I forgot my airline mile password, because I usually don’t care about my airline miles. I hopped in to reset my password and was greeted by a new step: selecting security questions.
Security questions are designed to offer security via a person’s history. The assumption is that the answers are known only by the person accessing the website, and are therefore more secure than an address or zip code or whatever. Also, they’re easier to REMEMBER, because they are a part of our personal history.
Delta, however, attempted to make this process as difficult as possible.
Issue Number One
First, I had to select TWO security questions.
Answers must be AT LEAST 4 CHARACTERS LONG, for some reason. Also, let me remind you, I was logging in to check airline miles. Miles that I can only use as Corey Vilhauer. Miles that do not need to be double protected, because they are useless unless I have a hundred thousand of them. Which I don’t.
Whatever, though. I chose the first one (“What is your father’s middle name?”). Then, I tried to choose the second. And I couldn’t.
Issue Number Two
I couldn’t because I was unable to nail down definitive answers to any of the remaining questions.
Understanding that these are security questions, I needed to be fully sure that the answer I gave then was an answer that can be replicated later on. The problem is, I couldn’t guarantee I’d be able to do that.
None of the questions related to DEFINITIVE answers:
1. What was your first phone number? Do I enter with dashes or without? With or without area code? Will I remember which one I did six months from now?
2. What is your paternal grandmother’s given name? I couldn’t remember this at the time. I know it now, but that wouldn’t have helped much.
3. What was your favorite place to visit as a child? I had several. How will I remember which one?
4. What is the name of your first pet? We had a dog and two cats growing up. I don’t remember which was my first, and I sure won’t remember which one I chose six months from now.
5. Where did you meet your spouse/partner? We went to high school together. Will I remember if I say “high school” or will I assume it’s something more detailed, like “biology class?”
6. What is the name of your childhood best friend? I had three very close friends. Which one will I choose?
7. What is the phone number you remember most from your childhood? Is this even a real question?
I decided to choose the last one (“What is the name of the first school you attended?”) Even then, I knew I wouldn’t remember if I answered “Lincoln High” or “Lincoln High School” or “Lincoln.”
Issue Number Three
Which brings us to the last issue. The only question I could definitively answer, I COULDN’T ACTUALLY USE.
My father’s middle name is “Lee.” Three letters.
Disqualified.
Why can’t this have been easier?
In issues of security, definitive answers are required. These wishy-washy security questions are unusable and frustrating, and the character limit for answers is misguided.
The solution is to allow a user to create BOTH the question and the answer. In my case, I could have said “Full Name of High School” and the answer would have been “Lincoln High School.” No ambiguity. I make the rules.
Instead, I fell back to a makeshift solution: I wrote the answers on a piece of paper.
Pretty safe, huh?
(Originally posted on Black Marks on Wood Pulp.)
If there’s one thing that last month’s Gawker password leak reminded us, it’s that no password is safe, regardless of how often you use it. The answer is to create stronger passwords. Cryptic passwords. And use different passwords for every site.
But, seriously, how many passwords can YOU remember at once?
There’s a difficult balance between creating passwords we can remember – as in, passwords we can remember in our heads without writing them down on a piece of paper – and being safe consumers.
The answer for expert users is a password manager like 1password or KeePass. But my grandmother doesn’t use password managers. She does one of two things: she allows the browser to save it, or she writes it down on a piece of paper.
Neither is optimal (browser caches clear, paper isn’t secure), but the art of creating and – more importantly – remembering passwords is not designed to be optimal.
And herein lies the problem with technology: the chasm between need and familiarity.
My grandmother uses sites that have passwords. So does my father-in-law. Neither can remember those passwords, so they both have scraps of paper with all of the passwords written down.
They both need a password solution, but neither has the time – or the desire – to learn not only the ins and outs of a password manager, but also the conventions that led to the password manager’s interface.
By writing down their passwords, both my grandmother and father-in-law are undoubtedly putting themselves MORE at risk than if they would use a password manager.
This is one of probably a billion and a half examples of the difficulty in developing usable sites, applications and programs, and it’s an example that will never go away. Because as the population adapts to new technology, that technology changes, assuring that there will always be a group that’s behind the curve.
That group – in need of a solution that they may never understand – will keep usability experts busy. Frustrated, but busy.
Job security, amirite?
(Originally posted at Black Marks on Wood Pulp.)
I have been reading Jeremy Keith’s HTML5 for Web Designers for all of 10 pages and I’ve already found awesomeness: namely, the term “The Priority of Constituencies.”
Sounds fancy. It’s not – it’s painfully simple, actually. It’s a design term, stating that, “in case of conflict, consider users over authors over implementers over specifiers over theoretical purity.”
In other words, the further something moves along the line toward its final destination, the more important the needs of those who come in contact with it. Power to the people and all of that.
First off, this concept is at odds with a couple of wonderful feelings: comfort and ego. Things should be easy. And they should be done our way.
Bummer, huh? Because, unfortunately, that’s not how things roll out. Chances are, what works for us at the top level won’t work for our end users.
Think of the process that goes into creating a can of soda. Each stage of the process is guided by a different set of needs.
- Management wants a can that helps them make money.
- The bottler wants a can that can withstand the rigors of machine-guided filling.
- The distributor wants a can that travels well.
- The retailer wants a can that’s easy to stock.
- The end user wants a can that’s easy to hold and open.
If everything is done correctly, users get what they want, and everything else filters down from that.
Oftentimes, though, they don’t.
We see this with content. A mission statement, for example, is a wonderful outline for a business leader to follow, but is absolutely worthless to the person who just wants to know they’ll be able to get through to a live person on the phone.
We see this with usability. What’s done out of ease and to help protect against the most extreme outlier may not work for the standard user. The scrambled interface of a CMS could be organized for maximum speed and organization, but if a first-time user gets lost because it’s not optimized for usability, they’ll never come back.
The further away we stand from our end user, the harder it is to envision their needs.
Put yourself in their place. Will your Web site meet their needs? Or is it simply trying to meet yours?
(Originally posted at the Blend Interactive blog.)
