Fundamental Rules of Usability

Usability defined: Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal. Usability can also refer to the methods of measuring usability and the study of the principles behind an object's perceived efficiency or elegance.  This definition comes from Wikipedia and can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability Today I am referring to web site usability.

• Do not disappoint. At the heart of Usability is the degree of effectiveness that users can accomplish their goals and how satisfied they are with that process. When we create navigation, search functionality, a shopping cart and other functionality within a site, there is an expectation created in the users' mind that the site will successfully fulfill that expectation. If the site falls short of those implied expectation, the user is ultimately disappointed. Repeat the process more than a few times and you will, undoubtedly, lose the lion's share of your visitors. All the time, money and energy you've just put into your SEO/SEO/Marketing efforts have just been wasted.
  
  Common examples of disappointment
  
  - Broken links and forms
  - Links that don't take you where the link name implies
  - Inaccurate, meaningless or excessive search results
  - Excessive page load times
  - Incoherent, disorganized or poor writing
  - Many, many more (just think about the last time 'you' were disappointed)
   
• Make navigation easy. If you can't easily get around a site, what good is it? Place navigation where users expect to find it, either on the left or top (for shorter menu choices). Make your link names short and descriptive. Avoid the temptation of overly complicating the choices a user has, using subcategories to drill down on major categories. Make your navigation visually different from the rest of the site by employing the use of colors, borders, lines, tabs (or similar), so that the eyes can quickly locate it.
  
  Once within the site, let the user know where they are by using breadcrumb trails, so they easily go up (back) to where they came or deeper within the site (subcategory).



• Make it legible, readable and digestible Your eyesight may be good (now), but that isn't necessarily true for all your visitors. I've been on far too many sites which use a tiny font. Without thinking of their users, in their infinite wisdom, the designer has hijacked my browser controls by making it impossible to make their text larger. I'd also venture to guess that many notice surfers do not even know how to resize the text on a site, but not giving them the choice is the equivalent of a good hard slap in the face. If you're not going to allow me to read it, then at least put up some audio so I can hear what you have to say.
  
  Readability. Back when 800x600 screen resolutions and 15 inch monitors were about the only affordable choice, utilizing the full width of the screen 'might' have been acceptable. Those days are long gone. The eyes can comfortably read only a certain amount of characters per line. Ever wonder why newspapers are laid out the way they are and why you'll never read a single line of tiny text that measures 24 inches wide?
  
  Digestibility. You could theoretically publish an article the length of War and Piece on a single web page. The amount of information would obviously be overwhelming, resulting in 9 out 9 users to quickly abandon it. Presenting information in short, digestible 'chunks' similar to the concept of breaking a book into chapters. It's just easier to digest.



• Use emphasis sparingly . You've got a precious few seconds to capture your readers' interest. It's a well know fact that people do not read on the web, they skim. Imagine yourself in a sporting event, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans. Can you hear any one non-digitally enhanced voice that stands out above the crowd? Far too many people desperately want 'every' page element to scream for their visitors' attention. You can scream as loud as you want, but it's not going to happen. Be discriminating about what you emphasize.
  
  Emphasis can be created simply by making a page element (most often, text) visually different from 'everything' else. Most often, bolding is used, but that's not to say that it can't be done with using a different color, italics, capital letters, different sized font or something similar. If you really want to shout it loud and clear, maybe a combination of two or more techniques might do the trick, but once again, do it sparingly.
  
  You don't want to present your visitors with the online version of wearing checkered pants, a striped shirt and polka dotted. It'll only make people roll their eyes.
  
  
• Make it intuitive. No-one likes take time to figure out mystery navigation or take guesses on what the next step might be.
   
• Place important elements above the fold (bottom of screen).  It's not always possible for your customers/clients to guess there is more available by scrolling.
  
  
• Never ever put up moving things that cover up anything or keep moving without a way to stop it.
  
  
• Don't ASSUME your site is usable. Test, test and test again.  Conduct a simple test by having friends and family members walk through the steps of finding information or placing an order on your web site.  Check for stumbling places encountered during these tests: the check-out process might be too long, too much unnecessary information is asked for when placing an order, the navigation may not be as clean and clear as you and the designer believe it is.
  
  
• Put a way to contact you on the site, so you know what's not working.
  
  
• Make sure your website actually works.
  
  

Contact WingsDove for effective web design solutions, including  search engine optimization.