The Usability Blog

If you are running a site that requires membership, one of the key tenets is that you make the user aware of their current status, and what is available to them.  For example, if they need to log in to access certain features, make them aware of this.  eBeay, however, appears to forget the user’s state, leading to confusion as to whether you are logged in or not.

If you’ve previously logged in to the eBay site, but are not currently logged in, you are greeted by name.  merely by greeting you by name, eBay is implying that you have entered their site in a state that allows them to identify you.  This, typically, means you are logged in.  There are very few sites that greet you by name unless you are signed in.

Along with this greeting is the suggestion that if you’re not the person mentioned in this greeting, you should sign in.  The implication is, if you are the person ebay is greeting, you don’t need to sign in.  You only need to sign in if you’re not this person.

These two factors, combined, give the overall impression that you are signed in.  However, clicking on any of the links that require you to be signed in (e.g. Buy, Sell, My eBay) you are taken to the Sign In page.  You clearly aren’t logged in, and the eBay home page has got your state wrong.  You are not in a “Logged In” state.

This approach by eBay ultimately results in a surprise to the user, something you generally want to avoid at all costs.  The expectation is that if you are logged in, and all indications point to the fact that you are, you do not need to log in again.  In general, users understand that you have to sign in for certain services.  But, given the current ability of web sites to keep you logged in for a number of days or weeks (a facility that eBay themselves offer), it’s extremely important that users know where they stand.  What state they’re in.  In this regard, eBay fails.  It creates confusion, breaks standard conventions and surprised uses.

Everyone keeps telling me that web applications are the future.  The flexibility they afford, combined with the always connected nature of our digital lives certainly lend credence to this view.  I, however, am not so certain.  From a usability point of view, I keep on seeing hurdles, walls that application vendors are putting up that prevent me from truly loving these web apps.

The latest I’ve tried is Buzzword, a web-based word-processor from Adobe.  At the moment this is a Flash application, but all signs point to it being ported to Adobe Air, the OS independent (in theory) development platform.

Buzzword is a perfect example to point out the problems I have with web applications.  It manages to provide a fairly full featured word-processor in a web browser yet falls over when it comes to fundamental usability.  The best place to start is the Log In form.  When you load the page, a blinking indicator is flashing in the “email” field.  These indicators usually indicate the current position of your cursor, an indication that if you start typing, it will appear there.  Except in this case, it’s not always true.  Depending on how you selected the window, and what else you’re doing in the browser at the time, you may not be able to immediately type in the field.  You have to click in the field first.  I wouldn’t normally complain about having to click in a field before typing, but when there’s an indicator in the field that should tell you that your cursor is already active in the field.

To make things worse, you can’t reliably tab through the fields.  If you type in your email address and press the tab key, you’re taken to the “remember me” check box, not the password field.  These aren’t the only problems.  I can’t use my usual method of scrolling, which is my ***ALL TIME NUMBER ONE*** annoyance when it comes to flash, instead I have to click the little arrows.  I also, for some strange reason, can’t use my delete key (well, technically it’s fn + backspace because I’m on a MacBook).  It just inserts a hyphen instead of deleting anything.  Very annoying.

Suffice to say, in terms of usability web applications have a long way to go.  Considering it’s taken this long to begin to get people using the web effectively, to then go and break the conventions those people are becoming used to is a crime punishable by boiling one’s toes.

Bootnote:  There are other, more fundamental usability issues with Buzzword that I haven’t covered here as they go beyond the “Breaking Established Conventions” theme of this article and into the “Are you sure you user tested this” theme of a future article.