Web Site Usability

You may think that you have the coolest web site and you sell the best products at the lowest prices, but if you neglect usability you might be throwing money away. Web usability should work hand-in-hand with search engine optimisation so that you can keep your visitors when they arrive at your web site.

What is Web Site Usability?

Web site usability is about how a site works from the users perspective. It is about making the user feel comfortable finding information on your site, knowing that the design follows conventions that most other web sites do.  They can subconsciously navigate and search  to find the information they need.

Most users are looking for some specific information when they visit a web site, whether it is the price of a particular products. Chances are they arrived by a search engine or paid advertising link.  If it does not satisfy their requirements, will leave never to come back. It might be that you have great content but if obstacles are put in the way of the user, they may never find it.  The success of your site should not be measured in terms of how many visitors it attracts but rather the number that return. The most serious problems include:

• stopping the Back button from working
• long pages of dense text
• scrolling through lots of content
• hidden navigation menus
• pop-up windows
• unconventional site tools or site furniture

Breaking the Operation of the Back Button

The back button is an important part of users’ learned behaviour. Even with a link to go back a page, it is still much more convenient and requires less mental effort to click the back button, or a use the key stroke for back. Breaking the back button occurs when a link opens in a new window or a page uses a meta tag to redirect a page. Worse still, using JavaScript to remove it from the browser.

Dense Paragraph Text

Users do not read every word on the page. They don’t have time to waste. If they cannot find what they are looking for, they are going somewhere else. Content should be broken up into easy to read paragraphs and the level of writing should be aimed at your intended target audience.

Scrolling Through Content

Humans are lazy and if they have to scroll down the page to find information they are going to get bored and go somewhere else. Studies of user behaviour on websites carried out by usability guru, Jacob Nielsen, have shown that most users do not bother to scroll down the page more than around 1.3 screens so your total content should not be longer than 2.3 screens.

Hidden Navigation

This is often used by sites that try and be different, often as part of a cool, trendy design. Well it might look coo but it will cost you visitors if they do not even spot the navigation or cannot be bothered to find out what each part does.

Pop-Up Windows

This is something that the vast majority of internet users find really annoying. It takes the focus from the page you were reading,  places content in front of the page you were reading, stops the back button working, takes the focus of the page. User associate pop-up windows with porn or gambling sites and will try and close them without waiting to see what the content is about.

Unconventional Site Layout

Most people are familiar with using the internet and it is no longer a novelty. People are looking for information and they have built up a knowledge of how to do things when they get there. Another usability rule is known as Jacobs Law, which states:

“Users spend most of their time on other people’s website.”

To paraphrase, no matter how popular your website is users will have built up their experience of the internet and how to do things on other people’s websites. If you want your website to be used, then you should use a conventional layout, which places search bar and navigation in the expected places.