Some days ago I was having a look at monster.com, a website for job posting and carrer development. It has a new cool design that I had not explored yet. I think the visual is pretty solid and well-done: the search box lets you choose between your country (the domain you are surfing on, e.g. dot com for the US) or the rest of the world. And it worked quite well for me (even though I am Italian and changed domain on purpose).
However, since I read Wroblewski’s book on form design, I cannot help but analyse the forms websites present to me and look for good ideas or usability issues.
When you go on the ‘edit your profile’ section, you have the chance to modify your data and preferences, your carrer goals and so on. However, at a certain point I was confused and didn’t know how to proceed (which is a bad thing for a form). I have been stuck on the selection of my ethnicity for a while: as Italian, I didn’t know if I have to choose “Hispanic” (I am pretty close to the “Spanish” look) or just white. I don’t consider myself white and I didn’t have any certificate that would prove my racial roots. On the other side, I didn’t want to leave the field blank. In the end, I didn’t update my profile.
Later on, I had a talk with my gf who’s American and we both agreed on the fact that Americans have a strong distinction and awareness of ethinie. But Europeans don’t. And even though I was on the US domain (which has probably been designed for American users), I think this is a good example of how many things are involved into design. It’s not just about usability and completion rate (or conversion), it’s also about culture. As designer, I’d reflect on what would be the best way to present this selection: the form says that this is an information that would give be better results, what does it mean? Give me some hints on the “best choice” then!
