Five Ways to Improve the Usability of Your Web Site

Molly Malsam, User Experience Designer

What is Usability and Why Should I Care?

The ease of use and learnability of a human-made object: your web site

Most web sites get one chance to do their job, and if the customer can’t do what they came for, you lost them

Usable web sites = satisfied users = loyal customers

Usable web sites = less customer support, less maintenance and development costs = more profits for you

5: Write for Online, Not Print

On the Web, users are engaged – they want to go places and get things done, whereas print is often a more passive medium

Users read approximately 20% of the content on an average page

Use well-documented ways of chunking text for scannability:Headings and subheadings

Short sentences (no more than 15-20 words); fragments acceptable

Short paragraphs

Bulleted lists

Generous line spacing/spacing in between paragraphs

F-Shaped Reading Pattern

Do you want to read this?

4: Improve your link text

With some exceptions, underline and color textual links

Use meaningful link text

• Don’t use phrases “click here” or “learn more”

• Instead of:Click here to see our rates. See our rates.

Use different colors for visited and unvisited links

A Link Without Visual Affordance

(rollover state)

3: Answer Users’ Questions

Users are very goal-driven on the web; they are there because they have something they want to accomplish

Don’t make it hard to find basic information like address, phone number, email

List prices if you sell something: B2B products may have variations, but then provide the variations

Don’t hide answers deep in content structures or in “marketese”

Are You Answering the Right Questions?

2: Look at Web MetricsBasic web metrics service is free with Google Analytics

You can find a wealth of information about your web site visitors:

How many there are and how often they visit

How they got to your site (search terms, referring sites)

Where they are located geographically

What pages they visit and how long they stay on each page

What operating system, browsers, and devices they are using

Whether they “convert” if you have ecommerce or some other basic call to action

Google Analytics Dashboard

1: Do a Usability TestUsability testing doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming

It’s as easy as getting a few people who are similar to your users to sit down and use your web site

Make a list of the main tasks you expect people to do on your site and have them do it

Ask them to tell you what they are thinking as they use your site

Ask lots of non-leading questions

You’ll always be surprised and you will definitely learn something new that will help you improve your site design

Usability test in progress

More Resources

Alertbox, Nielsen Norman Group useit.com

User Interface Engineering blogs, podcasts, articles uie.com

Uxmatters.com articles

Usability.gov