"About Us" -- Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website
Source Article: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031027.html
A web page can be alot like the Wizard of OZ standing behind a curtain. It is the representative for the company or the organization. However, it can be very difficult to see who's pulling the strings. A scam operation out of a basement can look just as professional as a large conglomerate. An "About Us" page can help the user get an idea of who the company really is.
User research was done on sites from five main categories: Large companies, medium sized companies, smaller companies, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. He gave his users a few basic tasks to find basic information about the organization behind a given website.
Overall the results seemed very high overall with a 70% success rate. Nielson explains that with such an easy test, even that score doesn't say much. Users had difficulty finding information on top executives, contacting, organization philosophy, and history. All of these tend to be key things searched for on a website.
About pages are too often geared towards insiders, using jargon outsiders wouldn't understand. When well written and displayed, they can give a website added credibility and essentially a face behind the curtain. People want to do business with people they know.
To implement this, I will include better information on what the site is for and have clear links to contact info (especially on my other web site). I will also include it in my user testing to make
