10 RSS usability conventions
As a relatively new technology still, RSS suffers from being meaningless to many web users. Tried and tested conventions on usability of RSS — which I expected to be in abundance on the web — seem to be distinctly lacking. So I’ve written some of my own.
A little routing around on the ‘net, and it’s surprising to see “RSS usability conventions” returns 0 results in Google. This would suggest that no one has yet managed to formalise say 10 unbreakable conventions for offering up RSS feeds in your site. Maybe it’s not that simple. Anyway, here is a short list of most certainly not-definitive guidelines, tips and posers for improved RSS usability.
- The vast majority of users don’t understand the term “RSS” and neither should they. Many agree that the phrase “News feed” should probably be employed — whether this is in place of, or to accompany “RSS” we are less clear.
- Should it be “news feed” or “newsfeed”? As a new coinage I like the latter
- You should always provide a “what’s RSS?” link
- The orange RSS icon is increasingly recognised so should be used in conjunction with any text relating to feeds
- In IE6, clicking directly to the feed takes users to a page of raw code; for many I guess this would be unsettling, perhaps to the point of scaring them off RSS for good. Despite modern browsers being able to parse this xml and present it in a more usable fashion, should we disable the option to click direct to the xml entirely for the sake of the 90% who will get the nonsense garbage code?
- Therefore, should RSS always take us through to a page which describes it first? Or does this put a barrier in front of the users who already know what they’re doing?
- Feedburner — a third party app that sets up your RSS feed when users are directed there and provides stats on your subscribers — offers a solution to the above, but what are the implications of taking a user to a different site with no warning? How often do they find their way back after successfully subscribing?
- In cases where explanations are offered, many are too technical. I think this one remains my favourite and most “accessible”, but there are also good primers to be found at bbc.co.uk, mezzoblue.com and feedburner.
- Back to IE6. The casual user is not going to have software that supports feeds and they’re not going to go get one just for your site (well probably not). So what is your value proposition to these people?
Categories: Web 2.0, Web design
