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An Overview of Website Usability
Create a user friendly website through using principals of usability, accessibility guidelines, and user testing techniques.
added 7.20.08
Do your customers find your website easy to use? Are you happy with your ecommerce website sales? Is your website quick loading (10 seconds or less on high speed!) and does it give your customers instant access to what they may be looking for?
Whether your website is informational or enables you to sell products online, it is similar to a store without staff to help customers find what they are looking for. The principals of website usability consider the overall customer's experience from how the information is arranged on a website to loading times. When these items are addressed successfully, it is shown through website sales, traffic ratings, and happy return customers.
The dawn of high speed Internet is accompanied by the consumer who wants to find information quickly. With this in mind, website usability has become the most important element in the website design process, more important than color choice and graphics. A website can use terrible colors and graphics but if it is easy to use and gives the user what they are seeking instantly, it can be successful!
Although there are many principals of usability to be considered in your website design process, here are ten of our most common recommendations made to our usability clients:
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Make sure your navigation is well organized, easy to find, and consistent on all pages.
Navigation is the most important tool on your website because it tells your users what is there and where to go to find information. It should be the same on every page of your website and include a home link for people to get back to where they came from.
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Always use a white or off white background color for the main text content.
The main text should always be black or dark blue. Contrast is important for website users to be able to read, or scan, your information.
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Ensure your text is big enough to be read easily.
We find this problem frequently during website usability consultation. Text should be kept at a consistent size that doesn't make the reader strain to read it. Remember, everything about your website needs to be easy or the user will move on! If your text is too big your website user may find it offensive. A good rule of thumb is to use 12 to 14 point sized text for main body paragraphs and 16 to 18 point sized page titles.
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Keep your website text short and scan able for key phrases, omit needless information.
Today's Internet users don't read websites, they scan them. They are there for one purpose and time is important. Therefore by keeping your content short, to the point, and packed full of key phrases you can't go wrong!
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If your website contains a lot of information, consider a search feature.
Offering a search of your website's content provides that instant access customers are looking for. Make sure it is at the top of the page, in a prominent location.
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Make links obvious.
What is clickable on a site and what isn't should be obvious to your website users. By bolding, underlining, and creating mouseovers you can indicate to your website users where they may click for access to information.
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Always include a privacy statement.
Privacy has become a very important issue on the Internet. You should be informed and inform your website visitors as to what information your website collects and does not collect. It may surprise you to know that most hosting companies keep track of visitors, this can be used to your advantage to monitor your website traffic. Depending on your hosting company, other information can be collected, unbeknownst to you as well. Know what your hosting company is collecting and pass that information onto your visitors. Also, if you are collecting names and addresses through forms on your website let your visitors know what you will do with that information. For an example please visit our privacy statement.
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Always include a tagline near your business title.
Even if it is obvious what your business does, a tagline is important to draw in new visitors even more. Taglines can be very simple. Take this for example:
Joe's Diner
Offering the best salmon burgers in the west!
It is obvious we're at Joe's Diner's website but what exactly is their specialty? It is stated clearly by the tagline.
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Consider accessibility features from the start.
Accessible websites include features that enable people with various disabilities, who may be using assistive technology, to use them. Please click this link for more information on Accessibility.
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Test your website's usability by asking people to use it and give you suggestions on how to make it better.
User testing is invaluable to the success of your website and it will deliver ideas you'd never thought of. Select a group of people who are not related to your business in any way. Try to pick a diverse group, people with different lifestyles, professions, etc. With proper selection this group can reflect the diversity of website users. Use their suggestions for improved usability!
The principals of website usability are vast. For more specific information we recommend the following books:
Don't Make Me Think, a Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, by Steve Krug
Designing Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen
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