If you have a data protection issue, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. I recently complained about the Sun using a recording of Gordon Brown on the phone. I am not here going to go into why  can't believe it's going to take them over a month to get back to me, or how awful the journey to get to their complaint form is, or why they say this:

By email: If all your supporting evidence is available electronically, you can fill in our our online complaint form.

(People: email is not a webform.) I am, though, going to talk about their webform. It is rubbish.

Contact details are not mandatory

Here is the introduction.

No fields are compulsory

Yes, that's right - your details (the ones they need to contact you to tell you the result of your complaint) are not mandatory fields.

They're not helping themselves ...

There is a required field - here it is:

One mandatory field - name

Yes, it's the name of the person you are complaining about. They don't need any more info - just the name is required.

URLs - try and work it out ...

Don't forget HTTP

However, when you do enter a URL, make sure that you put HTTP at the front, as they can't cope with www there.

It's not like they could work it out or anything. Oh no.

Did you use these characters? You shouldn't have

And finally, after you've filled out the form, you get this stupid message telling you not to use % or &:

You shouldn't have used any special characters

Which is (a) a lie as I hadn't used any of the forbidden characters (I had to fill out the form 7 times to get it accepted, and I still can't work out why) and (b) stupid as they should warn you of this BEFORE you fill out the form and (c) they should use some on-page validation not wait until I press submit and (d) it's a stupid security feature anyway.

They accept any old gibberish

And even worse than all of this, I just filled out a dummy form. The ONLY information I entered was:

• Name: adasdsdsd
• Date of problem: 10/11/2009
• Details: cascs / & < >

And it accepted the form! Even though it has the forbidden characters.

Doh

What happens next? Nothing - your form validation is rubbish. You have no idea who I am.

Fortunately my proper complaint had more details.

But the ICO really needs to address its form validation ...

I thought it was interesting to compare two graphs as they seem to go in opposite directions:

• SEOmoz's new one on the relationship between word count and the likelihood of people linking to you
• Nielsen's graph from last year showing that the more you write, the less as a % of the total visitors will read.

There are obviously loads of caveats about comparing these datasets - read the articles yourself to see how they were put together. Note, in particular, that the X axes below are not the same.

SEOMOZ on what makes people link

They say that the more you write, the more likely you are to get a link to something:

I also recorded the length of the post to see if it had an effect on the average number of linking domains.  The length recorded was only that of the post and not the comments or other areas of the page to keep the data accurate.  I’ve read that most blog post should be kept to 500 words or less.  That information seems to be incorrect if you are going to post on SEOmoz and want it to be link worthy.  The chart below shows that posts with 1800 or more words have a much higher average of linking domains.

And showed this graph:

This data is for SEOMOZ articles

Nielsen on the number of words read

He showed that users do tend to spend more time on pages with more information. However, analysis showed that they spend only 4.4 seconds more on a page for each extra 100 words. At a reading speed of 250 words a minute, the typical user can read only 18 words in 4.4 seconds. So for every 100 words you add, only 18 are read on average.

He said this:

The following chart shows the maximum amount of text users could read during an average visit to pages with different word counts. This is a very rapidly declining curve. On an average visit, users read half the information only on those pages with 111 words or less.

In the full dataset, the average page view contained 593 words. So, on average, users will have time to read 28% of the words if they devote all of their time to reading. More realistically, users will read about 20% of the text on the average page.

His chart looked like this:

Word count vs duration of average visits

Conclusion

I'm not suggesting these charts are in conflict.

But what I'd take away from this is that, if you're writing something useful, make it as long as is necessary.

Don't fall for the usual rule of making it 500 words or less. People who are interested WILL read (Nielsen's graph only went up to 1,200 words and dealt in averages - so includes people interested and not interested in the subject matter).

And the more interesting it is, the more likely people are to link to it, which is good for SEO.

Update: They came back for me at about 8 or 9pm tonight ... So hopefully it's a glitch that's fixed - which seems to be the suggestion in this google forum (one of many): "If anyone is still experiencing this problem, Google is aware of it and they are working on it."

Maybe it's a test. But Google seems to have redesigned the header section of its results page, removing the links to other types of search (web, images, news, blogs etc) and removing the ability to sign in.

I might not be a typical user, but this seems a change for the worse for me - if you search for [keyword] and then decide you want to search just blogs or just news, there's no easy way to do it (although you can narrow it down to videos, forums or reviews in the 'show options' button, there aren't options for web, maps, news, blogs etc). See below for some other people's experiences.

The old header

The old header is still showing for Google News (and on the Google home page).

The links that showed in the old Google header

The new header

Here's how it looks now, with the links in the top left and right gone.

The links that showed in the new Google header

Update The change seems to have happened between 10pm Fri 4 Sept and 9.30am Sat 5 Sept. It's not just me seeing it - EG @rishil tweeted to say he could see (or not) the same issue.

@millerian said he couldn't see adwords either (screenshot) - and then pointed out that the links were there when he checked the google mobile site (I saw them there too).

@hugogill couldn't see the links on google.com but could on .co.uk.

While @andybeard couldn't see any links from Poland, but they appeared when he changed his geolocation in the search URL.

The Express has a new homepage beta. I was rude on Twitter and thought I should be constructive. So here's a wireframe for an alternative. What do you think?

The idea is that the 4 main areas - each dedicated to an Express obsession - pull in content from around the web (including the Express's own) in real time and link to it. There's a standard category and popular-topic navigation bar at the top for those who want other stories. Click the image to see the wireframe bigger.

Express homepage: an alternative

What do you think?

If you liked the list of user-experience twitterers that Elizabeth Buie of Luminanze Consulting put together, you may have wished, like me, that you could see the bios / description of each account.

Well, I've played around with the Twitter API, and now you can! See the full data here, or here's an iframe if you can see them. The credit for this list goes to @ebuie - I just added some bios.

Now I've 'mastered' the API, I shall use it for my newspaper twitter a/c counts from now on ...

A month ago I asked Web User how they had the cheek to review other websites when theirs had such a tiny font and was laid out with tables. They replied that they agreed and were looking forward to their new design. It's now here in beata.

I think we can agree that (1) it's much better and (2) they must be the most organised people in the world if they can remember to tweet someone a month later asking what they think of their new look!

Also, they're going about the redesign in a sensible way. They've launched it as a beta - this gives them a change to get feedback, correct any errors and generally warm people up to the idea. Not like that godawful Delia Smith relaunch.

However, here are 5 changes I'd make before it goes fully live.

1 Adjust the IA

They used to have 5 main categories. They've now got 11 - too many to get your head round. I'd go back to fewer if I were them - for instance, I found the old 'Product reviews' label a lot clearer than the new 'products' label.

My recommended list of main categories would be:

• News, blogs & podcasts
• Hardware, software & website reviews (which would also include the games section). This could be just 'Product & website reviews' if my suggestion is too long.
• Help & advice (which would include broadband, especially the broadband advice section; and also the video section as they are all advice videos).
• Forums

I've cut the number but given them longer titles to make it much clearer what each one is.

The current win and magazine 'sections' could be kept, but I would treat them differently visually. They aren't the same sort of thing as the main categories.

2 What's a link?

Make links clearer

I think the visual language and the use of labels needs adjusting - at the moment some headings are links and some aren't, and it's not clear which is which.

So on the home page, the big 'Problems solved' heading is a link but 'Product and Website reviews' isn't. This isn't clear visually.

The problem is partly caused by the IA issue - they've combined the reviews under the heading but because the reviews are split across sections, the heading can't be a link to just one section. My IA / labelling suggestion will fix this.

Making it more obvious what's a link will hopefully enable to ditch the 'All ....' and 'More ....' links which are a bit of a mess and should be unnecessary.

The same also applies to the 'Read the solution' links (just make the Q the link - this will also be better for SEO).

3 Watch for tiny text

Font is too small

There's good use of typography in general. But occasionally some tiny text has snuck in - I never like to see font-size:x-small ...

4 Fill the category pages

There's not much on some category pages - this is probably the IA point again....

5 Make the newsletter sign up box clearer

I'd put some information about the benefits in this box - give me some motivation to click it.

Right, I hope those helped ...

If it was me, I'd reconsider what's the most important thing for the homepage. Is it really news? They know their users better than me, but I wonder if news is really the most important section as its position at the top implies ...

Three's a trend. And five's a default. So here are five examples of sites whose logo is a link to the homepage - and who make this obvious by changing the image on mouseover / rollover (difference explained here). There are some tips on how to do it yourself at the end.

Amazon

Amazon logo changes to show it's a home link

Pampers

Pampers logo changes to show it's a home link

Facebook

Facebook's logo

Waitrose

Waitrose logo changes to show it's a home link

Riverford

Riverford logo changes to show it's a home link

How to do this yourself

Some useful links:

• CSS image rollovers - this probably has all you need. But the following may help too (although CSS solutions are probably better than javascript ones - see CSS vs javascript) ...
• Create a rollover logo
• Using JavaScript, when a user mouses over an image, you can tell that image to switch to a different image
• Using CSS to change rollover image for link
• Double Image Rollover using Pure CSS

In March, I appealed to the Audit Bureau of Circulations to sort out its terrible ABCe website. It's had a redesign. Here's a list of its latest problems.

If at any point the ABC wants to pay me a consultancy fee, for all this free advice, just leave me a comment to tell me how to receive my money ...

All the URLs have changed but there are no redirects

Search results for ABCe after redesign

They've had a redesign, but they haven't redirected the old URLs to new ones. So, for instance, if you click the second link shown in Google for a search on ABCe, you get page not found.

Lesson When relaunching a website, always 301 redirect your old pages to new ones (even if they're all just to your new home page). That way, external links still work and you keep the SEO benefit of any links.

They haven't sorted www vs non www

The more observant will have noticed that the title of the first result in that screenshot says 'To access IIS Help'. The ABC hasn't realised that abce.org.uk is not the same URL as www.abce.org.uk. And if you go to the ABC URLs without www, you get page not found or server errors.

Compare these pages:

• www.abc.org.uk
• abc.org.uk

and these ones:

• www.abce.org.uk
• abce.org.uk

Lesson When you set up your website, redirect yourdomain.co.uk/whatever to www.yourdomain.co.uk/whatever. And log in to your google webmaster account to set your preferred domain (www or non-www).

They're running two absolutely identical websites

The new ABC homepage. And also the new ABCe homepage.

You can access the entire website at www.abc.org.uk - or you can see an identical website at www.abce.org.uk.

The only difference for each and every page across the two sites is whether there is an e in the domain name or not. For instance, compare these two URLs:

• www.abc.org.uk/Corporate/AboutABCe/StandardsandMetrics.aspx
• www.abce.org.uk/Corporate/AboutABCe/StandardsandMetrics.aspx

The same is true for every URL. This will cause problems with duplicate content in search engines, plus splitting incoming links over two URLs is problematic for SEO.

They do have two brands - ABC for print, ABCe for online - but they don't need two websites. And even if they did, they wouldn't need two identical ones.

Lesson Have a website. Don't have another identical one.

The navigation is inconsistent

If you go, say, here, some related links appear in the right:

• If you click on the first one, JICwebs, then a jargon buster sudenly appears in the left hand menu, under the links that are for subscribers only.
• If you click on the second one - the jargon buster - you get page not found.
• If you click the others, some random stuff happens.

As far as I can work out, the top navigation bar controls the right hand related links box which in turn controls the left-hand menu.

Some pages have a right hand menu with related links, some are full-width with no right hand menu, and some have an empty right hand menu.

Lesson Make your navigation consistent. And keep things that are together, together. Having the top, left and right navigations interdependant AND inconsistent is really confusing. And use templates consistently.

Some minor points

• Login not clear To get to most pages, you need to login. It's not clear which pages require this. Although on this page it says "only members can access the following pages" and you can click on the links, so clearly they're confused at ABCe too ...
• Titles unclear Although the titles have improved since the last site, they still aren't ideal. For a start, capitalisation is random. And secondly, they don't show the site structure. Instead of going 'Page name - Section - ABCe', they just show the page name. This looks unclear in Google.
• Descriptions poor The descriptions aren't proper English. This isn't gramatically correct: "How to become a subscriber to ABCe and what are the benefits of doing so."
• Too many link styles Some links are blue italic. Some are black unerlined. Some are red not underlined. Some are grey. Make your mind up ...
• Mising images There's a contact list here, but all the photos are missing.

I could go on - there's more. But I won't.

Yet despite these basic problems, they're using SIFR to show fancy fonts. I think they should concentrate on these other things ...

I hate mobile versions of websites. And ITV's dismal mobile site demonstrates why.

Why I hate ITV's mobile site

There's no way of getting to the real site

ITV's mobile site

ITV has a good Twitter account called @ITVFootball. Here's a sample tweet: "Morning all. Start your day with a bumper round of transfer gossip link".

The only problem is that if you click on the link from your mobile phone, you're forcibly redirected to ITV's mobile site.

There's no way to escape from it and access the normal site.

My phone is perfectly capable of handling most websites. Even if you are going to redirect me to a cutdown mobile version, at least give me the option of getting to the proper version.

I can't find the content I want

So I've clicked on an ITV tweet and I want to find some ITV content about football transfer gossip.

There isn't anything there. The only football related option is 'FA Cup' (well, there's 'England' as well, but you're forced to guess this is football related from the picture - so let's hope you're not browsing with images off ...).

Click FA Cup, and you can get SMS Alerts for all Premiership teams. But you can't actually reach any content about them.

The content is out of date (1): FA Cup

FA Cup? FA Cup? It was over 3 weeks ago wasn't it? Why would I want to see this?

If you do click through, you can buy some videos of the highlights (NB you have to buy each half separately). Or you can click to see the semi-final scores. Or you can click 'Previous results' to see, er, the semi-final scores.

So what football information they do have is short, badly organised, expensive videos about a competition that finished 3 weeks ago.

The content is out of date (2): Britain's Got Talent

Maybe people still want Britian's Got Talent information, even though the competition is over.

If they do, surely they don't want a 'News & gossip' section that has, as its latest news, something from 4 June. That's nearly 3 weeks ago. Haven't they noticed Susan Boyle's recent problems?

Also, I don't even understand the page anyway. What does 'More Talent' mean?

The content is out of date (3): England

So if you work out England is about the England Football team, you can buy some videos of the goals.

You can also click to see the Fixtures and Results. Except the most recent entry here is 1 April. That was nearly 3 months ago.

The content is out of date (4): Their own shows

It's Tuesday just before 10am. Even for their own shows last night, the content is out of date. The recap section for Corry shows last Friday's show - I can preview yesterday's show (even though it's been broadcast) but I can't read/watch a recap.

The same is true for Emmerdale.

Even the help section is nuts

I clicked on help from the mobile site, and it told me that to access it, I had to text them so they could send me the link to it.

This is useful help if I can't find the site - but not if I've clicked on help from the site...

Mobile sites in general

Here's an argument about why you should have mobile sites.

Meanwhile,  Jakob Nielsen says: "Mobile phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile versions."

Providing them is one thing. Forbidding me access to the main site, and forcing me to look at an out of date mobile version that doesn't have the content you promised to show me is another ...

Here's a round up of bad or hard to use login designs and functions - things to avoid if you ever sort your login out. There's a collection of links to good-login resources at the end.

1 Asda: warnings of doom then page not found

Get your email address or password wrong at Asda Pharmacy and you get some doom-laden warnings: "You have 2 attempts left to enter a valid email address".

This counts down to 'your last chance'. My god, what will they do if I get it wrong again? Ah, they'll show me a page not found page. Brilliant!

Asda's log in - terrible warnings and then page not found

2 Bank of Scotland - four different URLs to visit

To log in to wealth management at Bank of Scotland, you need to press 4 login buttons and go to 4 different pages, each with another login button or link. You visit all these on your journey until you get to the final page where you can enter some details:

• You press LOG IN in here: Bankofscotland.co.uk
• Which takes you to here where you press LOGIN Bankofscotlandprivateclients.co.uk
• Which takes you here where you press 'Sign in': Bankofscotlandhalifax.co.uk
• And finally here, where you can enter a user name: Bankofscotlandhalifax-online.co.uk

I'm not kidding - you have to press login 3 times - and only on the 4th page can you enter your name and password.

Bank of Scotland - login 4 times

3 Nationwide - weird label

Nationwide Sign On. Huh?

A good idea is to put login or your account.

That's what most sites do, and it helps people find what they're looking for.

For some reason, Nationwide instruct you to 'Sign on' - which is what I thought you did when applying for unemployment benefit.

4 Trinny & Susannah and Findaproperty - use HTTPS

If you're asking people to enter their email address and a password, use a secure connection. These two sites don't.

Use HTTPS for login

5 Abbey - don't use odd words for passwords

Abbey login and its weird terms

I'm not sure what is going on with the Abbey.

Your passcode is your password.

Your Registration number is a numerical password or PIN (not some sort of account number as it sounds).

Just call things what everyone else calls them ...

6 Early Learning Centre - don't make other boxes obscure things

Early Learning Centre - box obscures login

If you click login at the Early Learning Centre, then a login panel opens up.

If you then move the mouse towards the panel, it goes over the top navigation.

A dropdown menu then appears, obscuring the login box.

Doh.

I mean, don't they test these things or use them themselves?

7 T-mobile - I said I wanted to log in didn't I?

T-mobile has a separate login and registration link.

So if I've clicked login, I want to login.

I don't need you to sell the benefits of logging in and hide the box on the right hand side.

I just want to login, please.

T-mobile login - let me login

8 Many Eyes - huh?

This one speaks for itself ...

I do love Many Eyes' data visualisation tools though! And at least the two messages explaining the insanity have a sense of homour.

Many Eyes - complicated

9 Post Office - don't have a non-clickable link

Post office login - non clickable words

I can sort of see why the Post Office has a 'My account' label.

However, it looks like the usual 'My account' clickable link.

You have to click next to it to get it to work ...

Examples of good login design

That's what not to do. Here's what to do:

• 65+ Examples of Login Form Design - this is the intro page. To see them all, click the second link in the first para.
• 36 beautiful login page / form designs - a great collection from Dzine this March.
• 21 beautiful login page/form designs - another collection from Dream CSS
• Attractive Login / Signup Interface Designs - more ideas from Greepit.com
• Designing Login Boxes: 6 examples of Good and Bad Design - thoughts from Design vs Art.
• Interface Design: Login/SignUp - collection from Web Design Ledger
• Login form designs and inspiration - some thoughts on options from OpenCrypt.
• Login Forms - a collection on Flickr (the same user, Factory Joe, has some other collections of interface designs and an interesting blog.)
• Inspriational Login in web design - another collection from Pattern Tap, a pattern library.
• Login - Interaction Design pattern Library - thoughts on good design and a collection from the Welie.com pattern library.
• Using address finders in web forms - this is about address fields in registration processes rather than login. But it was interesting, so I included it here!

If you enjoyed all this, you might enjoy my recent posts on the usability of bing and on the usabilty of taps (yes, taps) and the lessons for web design.