Website Usability
June 30 2009
Most experienced web designers already know the rules for making a website user friendly but those newer to the scene need to take note of these rules and why they are important.
A study by IBM in 2003 found that for every $1 you invested in making a site easy to use translated into $10 return if the site was a commercial one. A useable site also converts 100% more than an awkward one. For these reasons alone a site has to be created to be useable as well as beautiful.
The site has to be easy to navigate and use one of the traditional navigation schemas. Things such as the term ‘About me/us’ linking to a bio page on the person or company who owns the site. The logo at the top of the page linking back to the home page and a shopping cart being exactly that. These are things taken for granted by many visitors and if you plan on varying them, do it clearly.
Web pages have grown in size since broadband became mainstream. Once pages had to be as light as humanly possible to squeeze down a 56k line as quickly as possible. Now with broadband and ADSL the standard we can get away with a little more than that now. That isn’t to say someone with a T1 into their house is going to sit there and wait even 5 seconds for your pages to load. As a nation we are becoming increasingly impatient. If you can’t grab someone’s attention within the first 3 seconds you have lost them. Using CSS instead of tables and navigation items and optimizing any media or images will speed up your page load immensely.
You must not restrict users in any way. The biggest mistake here is having your pages open up new tabs or windows. Although this may seem a convenience from an experienced users point of view it muddles the navigation options for the average user. For instance, a page that opens in a new tab has no back button. Although a small thing, it can confuse, and worse, annoy visitors to your site. If you are linking externally then it is logical to have that open in a new tab or page, so the navigation options on your site remain intact.
Avoid using frames if you can as it makes the whole web process a little more difficult. It makes the site harder to bookmark or interact with, you can’t email links, or print properly and the main issue is search engines still don’t seem to like it. If you want a good page rank then this is certainly a no-go.
Your page layout should reflect the readers habits. They don’t read a web page like they do a book. They scan in an F shape across the page from top left down to the bottom. You have to sculpt your page and content to take advantage of this. Have your important text in line with one of the lines of the ‘F’ and your readers will take note of it.
Following these rules will make your website work for your most important critics. Not your client, but their audience.
Related posts:
