Website Usability

The essentials of web usability, from Interpix Design

Website usability might seem like a fairly simple concept, on the surface. But as technology becomes more and more complex, website usability actually becomes a bigger issue for many sites. It may seem simple to provide usability to your website’s users, but it is never really easy.

Interpix Design has been perfecting its approach to website usability for nearly a decade now. The principles of website usability are simple to describe and you can use these as you design your website. However, as they say, the devil is in the details and that’s where you might call on professionals to optimise your website usability.

Seven website usability guidelines to follow are:

1. Provide useful content
If you give your users content that they find valuable, you will be able to get them to come to your site and keep them. Provide them with the up-to-date worthwhile advice. Give your users something.

2. Understand what user requirements are.
We’re going to say this a lot: easier said than done. It comes down to this, though: use all the available resources to fully understand and document what it is your users require and want from your website. Talk to more users and get more information out of all of them.
This also entails understanding their expectations – you can follow conventions as long as you and your user have the same understanding of what convention is.

3. Involve your users in determining website usability requirements.
The worst websites on the internet, like all the worst ideas in marketing, try to map concepts onto users. Take your idea to users and find out how they think they might want to use it.

4. Know your goals and those of your users before commencing design
All too often, people come to us after they have designed a website, intranet, application, etc. and they don’t know why users are abandoning it. While we can fix this sometimes, it is always much easier to build a usable website “from the ground up.” One of the best methods of understanding goals is to create user personas. Want to maximize revenue from your site? Design it for a user you fully understand and know well — a user persona.

5. Privilege performance over preference
Website usability begins and ends with practicality. You can have all the pretty colours of the rainbow but make sure that your users are on your page first and foremost to accomplish something that is important to them.

6. Get found
Searchers are restricted to search engine results. Know the basics of search engine optimisation and employ these principles to get your customers to your site.

7. Employ multiple designers.
Let several designers have a crack at meeting the user goals you’ve determined. Then get them together with your best website usability people and determine together which elements of each design best meet the prospects of website usability.

These are just a few of the principles that will help you fully achieve website usability.

Contact Interpix Design today if you want professional assistance from a team of experienced website usability specialists.