Usability of Website Development and Design

When Steve Krug wrote his excellent web usability book, he aptly called it “Don’t Make Me Think!”. Designing a site for best usability means that users don’t have to figure out what to do; they are just able to do it.

Use standard conventions, such as links that are distinct (blue and underlined is standard), menus top or left and the logo in the top left hand corner. Search boxes are usually on the top of the page, and should use standard wording such as “search” on buttons. Following standards for important elements that are familiar to web users means that they know immediately where to look for or how to use them. Important elements (such as menus, logos, colours and layout) should be distinct, easy to find and consistent throughout the web site.

The information architecture of a site is crucial to usability. Topics and categorization should flow from broad to narrow, and should be built around users’ needs and not company structure. An intuitively designed structure will guide the user to their goals.

The sitemap should be available from every page, and should clearly show the information architecture of the web site. Dynamic sitemaps can be employed so that the sitemap is updated automatically as information is added to the web site.

As well as carefully thought out information architecture, the navigation  should guide users easily through both top-level and deeper pages. Navigation should also let the user know where they are in the site (especially as not all users arrive via the home Page!).
Breadcrumb links, clear page titles and URLs and menu changes all help to show the users where they are.

Accessibility makes web sites easy to use and easy to scale. In some countries, accessibility is a legal requirement of government web sites. Some key points of accessibility include the following:

• Ensuring that the web site and all its functions are compatible across a range of browsers, including text only and mobile browsers.

•  Make sure that the web site is functional to users who might have a disability. Some ways of doing so include the easy increasing or decreasing of text size and using meaningful descriptive tags in the code for when the site is accessed through a screen reader.

•  Not designing for high bandwidth users only, but instead making sure that low bandwidth users do not have to wait for heavy page loads to access your web site (unless you have a good marketing reason for keeping those users out!).

• Having a search box (which works!) available.

Content needs to be written so that users can grab the information they need in as little time as possible. Text can be made more easily readable by:  

•  Highlighting or making bold key phrases and words
•  Using bulleted lists
•  Using paragraphs to break up information
•  Using descriptive and distinct headings 

On the page, use an inverted pyramid style, or newspaper style, for your copy. The bulk of the information should be at the top of the page, to make for easy scanning.

There are some key “don’ts” when it comes to building a user-friendly web site: 

•  Never resize windows or launch the site in a pop-up.

• Don’t use splash pages.

• Never build a site entirely in Flash – most search engine spiders cannot even crawl Flash sites.  

• Don’t distract users with “Christmas Trees” (blinking images, flashing lights, automatic sound, scrolling text, unusual fonts, etc). 

Usability and accessibility guidelines are useful for checking that all elements have been dealt with. MIT Information Services and Technology provides a usability checklist online at: web.mit.edu/is/usability/usability-guidelines.html

On the next page is a copy of some of the items on the MIT checklist. Use it see how your favourite web site measures up.