I am going to keep this short but I really need to post a rant about how some monsters like Yahoo! ignore common-sense userfriendly design. I am not talking about visual design (though I personally believe that visuals are actually extremely important) but rather about usability of content.

What I love the most about Yahoo! Finance — Their exclusive columns by Robert Kiyosaki, Suze Orman and the bunch.

What I hate the most about Yahoo! Finance — The way these columns are layout.

Let me explain this point — and if any Yahoo! Executive is reading this, please, for heaven’s sake, pass it on the people in-charge of managing Yahoo! Finance. As of today, Yahoo! Finance features the latest column of one of its columnists. Lookie –

Now, if you want to read other columns, you have to click the “View our other columnists here” link. Which leads you to a page that looks like this –

And then, my problem starts! To read the articles that I might have missed on the homepage, I have to visit each author’s bio and that’s where I get the listing of their old articles.

What this means for me is that I have to check out 11 pages each day to see if I missed any of the columns. Mind you, the only reason why I visit Yahoo! Finance is because of these columns. Syndicated news is absolutely of no interest to me as Google News does a far better job at it.

Why can’t Yahoo! have a listing of all the articles on just one page in a chronological order? Trust me, it would make your site more user friendly and also make it easier for people like me to not miss out any of the articles!

Do you think I have ’nuff time and motivation to check out all 11 pages each day? Nopsy! And oh, if you are gonna suggest me eMail alerts, no thank you! I already get more than 1100 eMails each day.

What I love the most about Google Finance — 1. The charts and how they relate the fluctuations in stock to the news. 2. How they layout the details and other stuff related to company (financial statements, blog posts, discussions etc.) whole chart you are currently viewing!

What I hate the most about Google Finance — 1. They still don’t cover the Indian Markets. 2. That I can’t customize the headlines on the front page of Google Finance like I can do on Google News. 3. They still don’t have Google Finance Alerts like they have News Alerts.

Oh I would also love if Google can rope in some exclusive columnists.

Ok I am done!