Until wordpress can sort out the way they deal with categories they will never be able to handle the sort of sites people really need. The way categories are handled is fine if you only have a few. But if you have a need for multiple and several depths of categories, for example Countries > Counties > Towns without the system dying in the process they just don’t cut it!

There are two main problems, the first is the front end. When, as I did the other week write a little script to import UK counties and towns (about 2700 nested in various numbers) it nearly croaked my dev box, as it tries to display all of the categories. Now before you jump in my face saying write a “show only child plugin”, I started that, but then came the second round of pain.

That pain came in the form the way the categories and posts are handled in the admin. That’s right, when editing a post or getting someone to add articles for you based on your hierarchy the system tries to nest them all, in those little tick boxes, see below.

Now this system, unlike the front end didn’t nearly croak my system, it gave it the biggest hiding of it’s poor life (apart from other dodgy scripts of mine ). The problem with stuff in the admin, is it can’t really be frigged with as it is the sort of thing that will get overwritten during an update.

So come on WordPress, allow us to have 1000′s of categories and make the world a better place?

I happen to know the people behind this website and they really know their stuff when it comes to user testing. I know some people at the SEO Roadshow met them in Copenhagen.

Well they are passing on some good tips for using Google’s Website Optimiser, which is in Beta and I am in the process of trialling but they have create a fantastic 101 points. A lot that make good sense even if you are not split testing.

If you don’t know about this sort of stuff at the moment ( eg multivariate, taguchi and A/B test) , but I guarantee you will in the near future, next big thing, trust me!

To read more, click the link below or the Squirrel

101 Easy Ways to use Google’s New Website Optimizer

Sidenote : Please note I know about the funky formatting problems. I have to fix them. ukgimp.

If you are interested in usability and the users perception of your website you can do a lot worse that start to initiate some focus group sessions. You will find out information that that you never dreamed possible. Some of the suggestions you receive will be golden and you never really would think of. It is up to you act on this information and you would be foolish If you did not as these are your customers, you should listen to them!

So how do you go about conducting a focus group session? There are many ways but here is mine so hopefully it will give you some ideas of your own or at least make you enough of an expert to quiz your professional focus group service provider.

The Aim of the Focus Group
First off you need to plan what it is you are trying to find out, basically ‘the aim’. You can see a typical ‘aim’ later on this post where I have added a real focus group script. Be aware that without proper planning you will crash and burn, waste money and look like a right tit in front of the people who attend and maybe even your boss when they ask what you found out.

Choosing Focus Group Attendees
Choosing who attends is critical to the success of your focus group and I recommend somewhere between 4 and 8 people from your site demographic. If you have several demographics you may need to run a couple of sessions, for example students and lecturers. It is important not to mix clearly defined groups of people as you wont get the best from your attendees, as they may be looking for different things or features.

When ever I have conducted a focus group session I stick to a familiar script which broadly consists of the following sections:

1. Background Questionnaire to get quantitative results. (age, surfing habits, hours per week online etc etc)
2. General introduction to website and fact finding mission
3. Demonstration of the service/website
4. Group feedback session
5. Tea break with accessible flip charts for discreet comments with Good/Bad columns
6. Additional services feedback and questionnaire
7. Fun task, in small groups
8. Small scale presentation to get feedback
9. Free food

You can see the above sections in more detail in the full script.

Tips on Running a Successful Focus Group Session and Getting all you can:

• Plan that session!
• Call people the day before and on the day of your session as no people mean no results and that isn’t any fun!
• Offer some money, plus a free feed for the attendees.
• Make your attendees feel at ease, tell them this is anonymous and you value their opinions.
• Record the session, I recommend a digital recorder and omni directional mic, discrete and powerful, and this saves you writing notes like loony
• ACT ON YOUR FINDINGS, these suggestions are from your chosen market/audience, they know what they want and they expect you to deliver it, after all they are your customers!!

I hope that has offered some help to you and the example script below is of some use:

Sample Focus Group Script

Aim
The aim is to find out about the way students and academics find the information they need from the Internet to conduct their research and studies. The second aim is to determine the current perception of Site X and generate feedback on possible additional services.

Part 1: Background Questionnaire (completed on arrival)

Part 2: Present Searching Techniques (30 Mins)

• What are you favourite and least favourite web sites for searching?
• What do you like/dislike about these websites?
• Give an example of a website you remember?
• Do you use X, Y, Z or other specific websites?
• What do you like about these sites?
• Have you used Site X? If so how often?

Part 3: Site X User Demo / Exercise (10Mins)

Part 4: Group Feedback on Site X (20 Mins)

• Have you used Site X before?
• What did you like about the site?
• What aspects did you dislike?
• How could it be improved?

Part 4: Tea Break with Free for All Feedback
During a ten minute tea break set up two/four flip charts with headings, good aspects, bad sspects. Totally anonymous, say what you feel.

Part 5: Additional Service Feedback (20 mins 2X 10mins)
Look at the following two additional services and then make comments on the two sheets of paper provided. Spend around 10 minutes on each.

• Conference/Events
• Personalisation

Part 6: Design a Portal (30 Mins)
You are an Internet concept consultant hired by a large multinational company to design the key features and functions of a new (insert subject) portal that would appeal to the (insert subject) community consisting of (student/academics). You must create the look and feel of the website and use a flip chart to design the main layout. You must consider the features you would like to see and how you would like them presented. At this stage the sky is the limit. Think about how you would promote it as well, eg adverts in journals, word of mouth, email.

Part 7: Presentations (5-10 mins per group)
You must give a short “run-around” of your concept, giving reasons for including individual aspects and the overall layout.
FREE LUNCH

Just a quick one. Spent more time tryng to fomat that last frigging post than actually taking the screen shots and writing the bastard thing!

What is going on with word press when it insists on inserting multiple strong tags?

I may not be a brain surgeon, but I am not a muppet, at least I like to think so. So what the freak is going on when I try and post the following in WP using the html editor (ignore the *):

<*strong>Image 4<*/strong>
I end up with this

<*strong> <*/strong><*strong><*strong>Image 4<*/strong><*/strong>

aggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I know Dell get a lot of stick for their customer service and a load of other stuff. I must admit I like Dell and I have always had good support from them, but I do have a bugbear with the fact that Dell’s are difficult to expand, as they seem to remove extra slots from the mother board.

Anyway, onto to real reason for this post. Over time I have decided to look at the many special offers on Dell. Some seem really good. But Dell have this habit of saying one thing at the beginning of the transaction and for some unknown reason they switch the prices around. So what you thought was a great deal on page 1, then flips back to the original price on the second page. After Going through this many times on different offers I find out that the savings were added right at the very end, just before putting your credit car details in!

So I thought I would try and find one to show you. Whilst not strictly the same shows the loony things that Dell do.

Image 1 shows the price down from 719 to 599, that’s sterling btw. So by progressing to the next page you see I got presented with a different price. A considerably different £860 down to £740. WTF! The discounted price I am now being told is more than the price I was originally told.

Image 1

Image 2

So lets take it one stage further. Image three is the first time I am given the opportunity to add to the basket. OK, most people would want to do some customising, but still missing a call to action in my book.

Image 3

So lets look at the last but on stage, which is shown in image four, which has the price breakdown. I see a grand total of £739.99. So more than what I was told originally on the first page of the Dell site. But wait just a god damn minute, there is a delivery charge shown on the bill, £60. You lying bastards, you said it includes “Vat and Shipping”. So not only does it look like I will pay more for the actual goods, I also get to pay for something that you said was free!!.

Image 4

Sorry Dell, you have lost me and I know of more than 5 person mates who have baulked well before this last stage when your site started giving different values to what you stated.

At this point I don’t trust Dell to have the correct prices!. So I wont even bother looking at the need to create and account with Dell!

Why oh why do people insist on making you login to a site to make a purchase? Well if that is not bad enough I came across a site that makes you sign up and login just to view the products!

So as I really want to spend some of my hard earned and I have bought from these guys catalogue before so I decide to give it ago and fanny around with the signup. The signup involves a double opt in scenario, which is cool I suppose, but I am losing my patience, remember this is just to look at the products at this stage.

Just a side note here, the menus don’t work if you have JS turned off:

So now comes the real beef, the clickpath down to a product to get the item in the basket is lengthy.

1. Click designer wear from JS dropdown menu
2. Pick a brand type (not ideal because I am after shirts and I don’t know which ones have shirts)
3. Click item from list
4. Click to choose size
5. Click to choose colour
6. “This item is out of stock”, in a light colour, that does not draw my eye. So I find myself looking for an add to cart button, then I notice this out of stock BS!

There is an option to add to wishlist, but what I really wish for is the ability to tell the owner of the site that they need to cut down the number of clicks to add a product to the cart, but above all, don’t allow me to go down a fruitless path.

OK they have tried a little, there is a drop down box to choose between “show all items” and “show only in stock” but I did not notice this until my third attempt so I got the hump and left the site, no idea how good the checkout is, but who cares.

I had my debit card out and I was about to buy £2-500 worth of clobba, but was thawted early on.

So the major lessons:

1. Dont force a login just to view the products.
2. Tell me before I try and buy the product, select sizes and the like etc if the product is out of stock.

Footnote:

I was not sure if I should link to the sites that I generally will be criticising, but I decided it cant be that bad, hell they might even take action. So the link is:

Brandswear.com

(also have a word with someone about the redirect, that be doing you no favours chief!)

OK, not strictly a web usability issue but kind of related in a little way and will make me feel better when I offload the issue.

To cut a long story short, I needed a German IP for hosting, so after realising that the British education system sucks as well, because I can’t speak any other language I find out that lycos.co.uk do hosting and supposedly with German data centres.

Double Bonus!

Now I don’t want go through all this malarkey just to get hosting, like I did last week only to find out they don’t do .de domains. So I thought I would call the UK helpline number.

0870 730 1135 (12p per minute)

30 minutes later I get through, to an automated system, only problem is that the lady is speaking German. So I hold on in the hope that I will get through to a real person that can forgive my poor language skills.

They now cut me off and a recorded voice from BT chimes in saying that “The other party has terminated the call”. WTF!

So the usability issue here is, if you are going to add a UK number for which you charge to call, at least have a British speaking automated system. Then to allow pissed off people like me, to have a way of actually contacting someone to either flag similar issues or suggest they have a good look at their support.