9 Website Usability Tips
Usability is one of the most important components in web design. No matter what your site will be; a portfolio, an online store, an informational website or a web application, making it easy to use should be the top priority of both clients and their web designers.
Usability is even more important to new visitors. These are people that haven’t been to your site before and don’t know where anything is. They have no loyalty to your website, so they’ll have no qualms with going somewhere else if they are not able to find what they need easily. Usability is even more critical to owners of new websites because in the beginning, all their visitors will be new visitors.
So now that we know usability is so vital to the performance of your website, here’s nine things you can incorporate into your site to make it more straightforward to use.
#1. Logo links to homepage
Having the logo of a website link to the homepage is so abundant it should be considered a rule rather than a suggestion. If a website doesn’t adhere to this, you are just going to be frustrating your visitors.
#2. Users don’t see ads
People have become more and more accustomed to advertising on websites, to the point where they won’t even notice most ads, or even things that look like ads. If you are running an ad supported website, blend the ads into the content. If your website is for a business, make sure that any special features blend into the design of the website and don’t look too much like ads otherwise they will go unnoticed. Bonus: If web advertising is not your main form of revenue then you should not have advertisements on your website.
#3. Pagination is not for articles
Pagination is spreading content out over multiple pages, usually done to decrease load times of each individual pages. For example, Google will not show you thousands of search results on the same page because it would take far too long to load (and you probably only need the first few results anyway). However, some websites apply this to other types of information, like articles, blog posts or news stories; they split one article or story over multiple pages. Unless the document is extremely long, this isn’t necessary. All it does is frustrate the user.
#4. Be predictable
Elements of a website should be in the places users expect them and they should do the actions users would expect of them. For example; login and signup links and search boxes should be in the top right, logos in the top left or top center, menus at the top or the left of the page.
#5. Be consistent
If a page is called “About Us” in the menu, the title on that page should say “About Us” and so should the title at the top of the browser window. This gives the user more confidence in the navigation and of where they are. Designers should also be consistent in the visual appearance of the site. This can be helped by using the same typography, colours and methods of emphasis throughout the website.
#6. Text should be readable
Bright pink text on a dark blue background isn’t very easy on the eyes. The colours used for backgrounds and text should not clash, but should enhance the readability of the content. Whitespace, line spacing and line length are also important, both in making text readable and improving the design. Note: Whitespace need not be white, it is merely open space between elements. It can often greatly improve the design of a website while also improving readability.
#7. Make content scanable
Reading online is much different from reading a book. On the internet, people are reading off of their screen which causes much more strain on the eyes than reading from paper. For this reason, text needs to be in fairly short paragraphs, with headings for each section. This makes it easier for users to scan through the page to find what they need.
#8. Be searchable
Most websites with multiple levels of navigation should have a search box on every page. If a website has a lot of pages then it can be difficult for the user to find what they need quickly. Having search functionality makes it simple for users to find exactly what they want.
#9. Keep forms short
Forms, be they registration forms, contact forms or surveys, should be short. If a form needs to ask a lot of questions, it should be spread out over multiple steps. When doing this, you should tell the user which step they are on, what information that step is collecting and how many more steps there are to complete. With long forms it is also a good idea to give a user an estimate of how long it should take them to complete the form.
Wrap Up
Usability is an extremely important part of website design. Here I have only mentioned a few of the things that go into an easy to use website, if you have any other ideas, send me an email and let me know.