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Keys to Web Usability :: ON YOUR BUSINESS SITE
Website usability is the art of making websites easier to use. Usability is especially important to business websites since visitors can easily click away to other sites.
Visitors to business sites expect more and tolerate less; therefore are more likely to leave a confusing site.
In fact, confusion is the number one enemy of business websites. Confused customers do not buy and confused site visitors just click away.
Here are tips to make your business website
easier to use and less confusing.
- Use a consistent layout - A consistent layout throughout your site will make it easier for visitors to navigate and it will make the site less confusing. If you need more layouts, they need to retain a similar look and feel.
- Every page needs a home link - Visitors want to get back to your homepage easily.
- Verify page legibility - Choose text colours and background colours with good contrast. Text must be large enough to read with good line spacing. The right fonts are also important: san-serif fonts are better for business sites and are also easier to read rather than serif fonts.
- Use simple menus - generally on the left or top of the page. Visitors should be able to navigate without needing to think much. Make menus as simple as possible and ensure that there is a hover state; i.e. to provide feedback that this is really a link.
- Include a contact page - with a business phone, address, email and contact form. You are just trying to make it as easy as possible to conduct business and to make it easy for potential customers to contact you.
- Search in the upper right - For larger sites, provide a search function as another way for visitors to find what they need.
- Design for Scanning - Structure and group information on the page to make it easier to scan. Also use bullet points and lists when feasible.
- Use Graphics to prioritize - With size, colour, placement, and contrast, indicate to the viewer what to look at first and what to examine next. Helping the viewer this way makes it easier for the viewer to understand the page.
- Use appropriate white space - Don’t clutter your page with too much. People need white space in order to read and understand your web page.
- Pleasing Graphics - Colour scheme is important to your professional image and makes it easier to visitors to understand what you do, as well as navigate your site.
- Speak normally - Overly technical text or too much hype makes reading difficult.
- Move forward to the right - Submit, next, go, etc. buttons should always be on the right, cancel buttons on the left.
- Size your page to fit - Fit into the minimum standards screen resolution of 1028×768 without scrolling horizontally.
- Use media appropriately - If you have a video page, great, but your whole site shouldn’t be in rich media or people without the plug-ins, on mobile devices, or using text browsers will not be able to see your content. Audio, video, and animation must not play without the visitor clicking a button.
- Restrain movement - Animation, flashing, and movement make it difficult for people to read and scan your page. Use sublet animation for relevant informational purposes only.
- Limit advertising - Advertising has a place and a purpose. If you choose to include advertising, keep it relevant, limit it to specific spots on your site, limit then number of ads and mark them clearly as advertising.
- Include a Sitemap - Sometimes it’s just easier to see a list of all the pages on a website.
