[Photo credit: "covering the eyes" by Secret Seasons, on Flickr]

Here’s a harsh reality you must face when you’re thinking about the design of your website: nobody likes to look at computer screens.

Yes, we all do it all the time, but that doesn’t change our physiology. Most people suffer from screen fatigue simply because monitors flicker and render an image that’s grainer than print. Think about how many times you’ve gotten a headache from spending too long looking at a computer screen or blinked your dry, irritated and watery eyes. Happens to me almost every day. That’s why I sit by the window; frequent eye breaks.

That’s also why we can’t help scanning websites. Our eyes seek out big fonts, bullet points and images to help us make quick identifications rather than focus on tiny text. It means that sometimes we frequently don’t take in enough information to get the full picture – we just glean what we can quickly.

Good web designers will think about these usability issues when designing a site. Make sure you think about what you need to do to present your site so it’s easiest for people to read.

[The following article originally appeared in the FreePint Newsletter at http://www.freepint.com.]

My Favourite Tipples
By Peter Maureemootoo

As an expert in how people interact with computers, I always try to think of the simplest way to present information to learners when building and publishing online courses. I turn to these sites time and again for creating a better user experience.

• The Usability Toolkit from the Society for Technical Communication <http://www.stcsig.org/usability/resources/toolkit/toolkit.html> contains scads of checklists and templates that help you organise online course design.
• Q&A with Don Norman <http://digbig.com/4sdjj>. I respect usability guru Don Norman enormously, and in this excellent article, he shows what he knows about how people learn.
• Gadwin PrintScreen <http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/> is one tool I can’t live without when building courses. This free software makes creating custom-sized screen grabs a snap.
• Why People Can’t Use eLearning <http://digbig.com/4sdjk> is a compelling white paper that shows the other side of the hype – when e-learning goes bad.
• The WellStyled Workshop’s Color Schemes Generator 2 <http://wellstyled.com/tools/colorscheme2/index-en.html> lets you create pleasing colour palettes that always work on the Web.

Peter Maureemootoo is president and co-founder of Talance, Inc., <http://www.talance.com/>, a company that publishes and builds online courses and robust, large-scale websites. He has special expertise in creating intuitive and compelling systems for all users.