Web Usability: Don't Make Them Think

Search engine promotion is important: most visitors use a search engine to find your site. But once they arrive, they have to be able to actually use the site and understand the content. Otherwise, your site is a waste of their time.

Web Site Usability is gravely important for a successful website today. For people with little technical knowledge, especially in the area of web development, a website is just a website - if it looks good, then it has to be good. Oh Contreras.

looks can be, and often are, deceiving. Nonetheless, to a small businessperson who is running a website the general (mis)conception is that if their website is perceived as good-looking then it is also usable. There is a reason for that. When one creates a website for oneself or their business, one may often forget that he/she will not be the actual person visiting and using the website, so they create something that makes them happy and strokes their ego. Yes, they may end up with a beautiful, snazzy website...and so what after that? Are we entering a competition for good-looking websites? Or are we entering a harsh business world where a high-rate of conversion of your visitors to clients is what will make the difference between staying afloat or going under during this time of recession and economic crisis?

* Web usability is an approach to make web sites easy to use for an end-user, without requiring her (or him) to undergo any specialized training.[citation needed] The user should be able to intuitively relate the actions he needs to perform on the web page, with other interactions he sees in the general domain of life e.g. press of a button leads to some action. The broad goal of usability can be:

1. Present the information to the user in a clear and concise way.
2. To give the correct choices to the users, in a very obvious way.
3. To remove any ambiguity regarding the consequences of an action e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase.
4. Put the most important thing in the right place on a web page or a web application.

* Wikipedia Says

The homepage is one of the most important pages of the whole site because it’s the first, and in many cases the only chance you get to impress the visitor enough to keep them browsing. You’ve got a few seconds to convince them that the site has enough value for them to keep using it, because if it doesn’t, the visitors will leave.

Ease of navigation is one of the key features in website usability. When a site is clearly and cleanly laid out, with a logical progression of areas and topics, it tends to appeal to users. A tangled mess of a site is hard to move around on, and it may be challenging for people to access the information and topics they want. If users get frustrated enough, they may give up altogether and take their business elsewhere. Being friendly to the search engines and their spider crawling spy's is, obviously, also a critical component. We can't show off our usability if the customer can't find us.

Design aesthetics are also an important aspect of usability. If a site is well designed, it is clear, easy to understand, and easy to view. If the design is too cluttered, ornate, or illogical, users may struggle with it.

Another characteristic of website usability is the functionality of the site. If a website has bugs, broken links, pictures that don't load, pictures that load slowly, and other issues, people will have trouble using it. Nothing frustrates a user more than clicking on a link which leads nowhere, or trying to submit a form which will not go through. If a user does encounter a bug or problem, navigational tools which help the user report the bug and then return to what he or she was doing are critical, to make sure that users know that they are valued, and that site owners find bugs just as annoying as users do.

The centerpiece of website usability involves designing a site which is oriented around users, rather than a website which views users as secondary to the purpose of the site. A user-oriented site will respond to user feedback, and incorporate features into its design which keep users comfortable and encourage people to return in the future.

Some Usability Snafus To Avoid;

•  incorrect font size, type, and color;
•  poor choice of colors and lack of contrast in crucial areas;
•  misuse of white space;
•  excessive quantity and poor location of action content, such as Flash animations, videos, and others;
•  poor organization of the content;
•  too much or too little content;
•  poor usage of numbered and bulleted lists;
•  confusing navigation, i.e. menu;
•  badly styled links, both visually and substantively
•  and many others.