First iPad user test from Jakob Nielsen

Why is LR, a local media blog, carrying on so much about the iPad? Because it is a major player in where your content should be going. It’s not a fad product – Apple has sold one million and at a record pace. You need to be a part of the platform and you need to know how well users are adapting to it. That’s why we recommend reading Jakob Nielsen’s extensive usability test on the iPad. Jakob, for the uninitiated, is a longtime usability guy who challenges the status quo and puts assumptions to the test. Some of his findings will hurt iPad lovers. Under the headline “Crushing print metaphor,” Jakob writes:

“Swiping for the next article is derived from a strong print metaphor in many content apps. In fact, this metaphor is so strong that you can’t even tap a headline on the “cover” page to jump to the corresponding article. The iPad offers no homepages, even though users strongly desired homepage-like features in our testing. (They also often wanted search, which was typically not provided.) In electronic media, the linear concept of “next article” makes little sense. People would rather choose for themselves where to go, selecting from a menu of related offerings. A strategic issue for iPad user experience design is whether to emphasize user empowerment or author authority. Early designs err on the side of being too restrictive.”

Still, there were some positive findings:

“Another big difference between iPad and iPhone is that regular websites work reasonably well on the big tablet. In our iPhone usability studies, users strongly prefer using apps to going on the Web. It’s simply too painful to use most websites on the small screen. (Mobile-optimized sites alleviate this issue, but even they usually have worse usability than apps.)”

As you roll out an app, read this article (and the full study) and you’ll make a better product.