Web Site Ergonomics and User Tests

But as it continued to pursue this goal to improve physiological comfort, ergonomic research then began to look towards the spatial layout of information on screen, the display colors, brightness and contrast.

It was at this moment that the notion of Human/Machine interaction emerged, and research into the relation between humans and computers started to take off. To improve the ergonomic features of an application it became necessary to take people's cognitive (1) processes and their work habits into account, right from the initial design phases.

And so cognitive psychology began to take over from physiology. Today we talk about the ergonomics of Human/Machine Interfaces, or cognitive ergonomics.

One widely held idea is the notion that "ergonomics is just common sense." However, it is much more than that: ergonomics is a discipline that brings into play scientific knowledge from the fields of physiology and cognitive psychology. This knowledge ranges from perception to the mechanisms involved in cognitive processing of information.

The SELF(2) defines ergonomics as: "the implementation of scientific knowledge relating to humans and required to design tools, machines and devices that can be used by as many people as possible, with a maximum of comfort, safety and efficiency"(3)

Aside from physiological data such as perception, man is far too complex an "enterprise" to be understood completely through common sense alone.

It is by incorporating scientific knowledge into the design process that we can orient sites towards users.

The Web: scope for ergonomics

The purpose of an application is to serve a particular person with a particular aim. Saying that an application is ergonomic is meaningless in itself: a system is ergonomic for a given person, with a given objective. This means that any application should meet two criteria:

• usability: the application must be easy to use, and suited to the different user profiles making up the target population; it should facilitate learning - it is therefore important to know one's users
• utility: the application must be appropriate to the users' task; i.e. it must meet their requirements. It is therefore essential to know what the user's task is.

In the context of Web sites, ergonomics is a discipline that brings together human physiological and psychological aspects, and can be applied to Web site design, evaluation, utilization and maintenance in order to ensure that they are efficient and comfortable for different people to use.

Orienting logic towards operation or use?

A common error committed in Web site design comes from the confusion between a site's operating logic and its logic of use. There are two ways to present information on a Web site: the first involves "translating" the operation of the site, while the second involves showing the user how to proceed, using a means of presentation designed from use-based logic.

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(1) Cognition refers to all the mental process involved in our relations with the environment
(2) The Francophone Ergonomics Society (SELF) was set up in 1963 to promote ergonomics in French-speaking countries
(3) Definition adopted by the board of the SELF and approved during the Paris conference in 1988
(4) Ergonomic recommendations, web design guide…
(5) Jakob Nielsen is a leading expert on web ergonomics; his Alertbox column can be read on his site http://www.useit.com/
(6) American telephone company

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