Fast Track to Usability Hell: A Tortured Jaunt Through Blenducation
In this episode of usability hell, we follow a first-time visitor to Blenducation.org, a particularly cruel tutorial site that is about as fun to explore as a landfill.
1. Lying to make someone feel better sucks
Under the logo, on the homepage – “Fast track to learning Blender” – Anyone who’s barely opened the program knows there is no fast track to learning Blender. This sounds creepily like an advertisement. After reading this, anyone who doesn’t know what Blenducation still has no idea that this site is about classes and videos.
2. “Mom, the Blender community doesn’t seem all that open…”
http://blenducation.org/wordpress/blenducation-tv/
The first link immediately to the right of “Home” – a high-valued piece of screen real estate – is password protected and provides no description as to what users who log in there can do. It’s a dead-end for 100% of first-time visitors. Lesson one in your Blenducation: YOU AIN’T ALLOWED IN, *****!
3. “Mom, the Blender community hates me…”
http://blenducation.org/wordpress/forum/
Undaunted and still palpitating with excitement from their proximity to juicy, free Blender classes, our intrepid visitor looks to the next link. Forums. First thing we see there is a cold reminder that we can’t post because we aren’t registered, and two login fields. 100% of first-time users didn’t even know they wanted to post anything or login. “But mister, I just want to dl some vids, not log in or post!” “Sorry boy, lesson two in your Blenducation: YOU AIN’T ALLOWED IN, *****!
Our user brushes off this slap, and decides to go panhandle the forum for some tutorial gold. The first things they see are:
Fast track videos.
Requests
Offers
Fast track videos – that forum topic must be it! Our user clicks in, and sees a post. They click on the post and sees a thread saying that to access the videos, you have to look either on the Fast track page or alternatively, search through the Presenters page. Duh, the fast track page, our user says, and scolds themself for not equating Fast Track to Blender video tutorials. Sometime later, after realizing that this was overwhelminglyl more the result of nav-bar design flaw in the form of vague labels, and less of their ignorance, our user would forgive themself for the non-mistake.
Alas, our determined visitor is not a total blender newbie and wants to see some intermediate classes. Despite their inability yet to find the groove of Blenducation, they are generally sensitive to UI / UX issues and already have a fair grasp of Blender basics. After a dispassionate glance through the beginner Fast track tutorials (http://blenducation.org/wordpress/blender-fast-track-parent-page/) , our user opts to follow the forum thread’s advice and head to the Presenter’s section (http://blenducation.org/wordpress/presenters/) for some more advanced ones, to find tutorials as they are listed by presenters.
5. Mah tier-four pages bring all the fools to tha yard…
Uh-oh. None of the presenters’ page bios tell us who has actually posted classes / tutorials, or what they’ve posted. Our user comes to the staggering conclusion that he has to click on each presenter (there are 15) not knowing whether or not they’ve posted tutorials online, and with only a vague idea of what they teach. The user’s fragile mind reels at the amount of click-throughs and back-ups this may call for.
So they decide to check out the the first presenter – OOPz – hoping to find some tutorials there (http://blenducation.org/wordpress/presenters/). But there are two links on OOPz bio strip – to the left of the text – his picture; and to the right – a picture of his work. Both are unlabeled links, and our user – tired as it is well past 2am – clicks on the wrong one – the right side link – and accidentally gets taken to OOPz personal home page. The user backs up, then clicks on OOPz’s bio picture.
But there are still no tutorials. Only a “Download” link that leads to a big, nice, blank page.
When the user finally does find a presenter with past classes for download (http://blenducation.org/wordpress/presenters/dipingo/), they are unlabeled calendar dates. Only upon hovering their mouse on them do they finally know what the classes are about.
Surely, the user thinks, I’m missing something here. There must be a better way to find tutorials on this site. Something like a tagging system, or a list of categories. Something simple but that doesn’t require blind flailing through the presenter pages. Looking back on the nav bar for a hint, they see Site Map, the almighty patron saint of hopelessly lost netizens. Site Map will tell us how the website works, right? No, Site Map seems to have been grossly mislabeled. It does a spanking good job of telling you about class registration, but doesn’t tell you jack about anything else on the website.
6.
At this point, aside from being livid and frustrated, the user has no confidence whatsoever in the quality of the classes. They doubt that such an abortion of a website could possibly have high quality content, and solemnly swears never to donate any money to an outfit so operationally challenged.
And it’s a shame, one that makes the FOSS god shed a heavy tear. It’s a shame because Blenducation genuinely DOES have great content, knowledgeable and passionate presenters, and a web team who selflessly pours time into Blender and Blenducation. If only both were a little more accessible…
PLEASE, for the love of Blender, take a month off from putting up classes, revamp the website, and I guarantee you’ll triple your hits, returning users, session length, and every other measure that if bumped just an iota would also mean cash money donations for you all.
|
Author
Fast Track to Usability Hell: A Tortured Jaunt Through Blenducation
