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What is web usability & why is it important? Web usability is about making your website in such a way that your site users can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. A usable website can reap huge benefits on to your website and your business. * Every £1 invested in improving your website's usability returns £10 to £100 (source: IBM) * A web usability redesign can increase the sales/conversion rate by 100% (source: Jakob Nielson) Your website has to be easy to navigate Users have gradually become accustomed to particular layouts and phrases on the Internet, for example: * Organisation logo is in the top-left corner and links back to the homepage * The term ‘About us’ is used for organisation information * Navigation is in the same place on each page and adjacent to the content * Anything flashing or placed above the top logo is often an advertisement * The term ‘Shopping cart’ is used for items you might wish to purchase There are numerous other conventions like these that enhance your website's usability - can you think of some more? Don't underestimate the importance of these conventions - as the Internet matures we're getting more and more used to things being a certain way. Break these conventions and you may be left with nothing but a website with poor usability and a handful of dissatisfied site visitors. Pages must download quickly Usability studies have shown that 8.6 seconds is the maximum time web users will wait for a page to download (source: Andrew B. King - Speed Up Your Site). As of March 2004 just 25% of UK web users had broadband (source: UK National Statistics) so it's essential for optimal usability that your website downloads quickly. To speed up the download time of your website we recommend you do three things: * Use CSS and not tables to lay out your web page * Use CSS and not images to create fancy navigation items * Read this article about how to speed up the download time of your web pages at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/speed Information should be easy to retrieve We read web pages in a different manner to the way we read printed matter. We generally don't read pages word-for-word - instead we scan. When we scan web pages certain items stand out: * Headings * Link text * Bold text * Bulleted lists Did you notice that images were left out of that list? Contrary to the way in which we read printed matter, we see text before we see images on the Internet. For optimal website usability don't place important information in images as it might go unnoticed. Restrictions must not be placed on users Don't prevent your users from navigating through the Internet in the way that they want to. For example: 1. Every time a link is opened in a new window the back button is disabled. Approximately 60% of Web users employ the back button as their primary means of navigation (source: Usability Interface). If you do this then you're preventing 60% of your users from using their primary navigation - now that can't be good for usability. 2. Don't use frames to lay out your website. Frames can cause a number of usability problems, namely: * Disabling the back button (see above) * Bookmarking not possible * Impossible to e-mail the link to someone else * Problems with printing * Users feel trapped if external links open in the same window * Search engine optimisation issues There are lots of other ways that websites can place restrictions on its users, ultimately damaging their usability - can you think of any more? Just think back to the last time a website really infuriated you - what annoying thing did it do to make you feel that way? Campaign Blasts - Profit From Adwords! - Affiliate Marketing Methods w/ Adwords - Adwords Basics - Landing Pages 101. Inside Karate Kata. - Your Guide to Karate Kata Training. Understand Basics, Form and Applications. Article Index: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 | 75 | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 |
More Articles:1. The 3 Musts for Running Your Web Design Business Efficiently and Effectively There is no shortage of Web sites and books on how to create graphics for Web sites and how to use HTML or programming software. However, in order to run a Web design business efficiently and effectively you need to know a whole lot more than just how to design great looking graphics and Web pages.I’ve learned a lot by trial and error in my years as a Web design business owner. I want to share the 3 most important musts for running a Web design business so you can avoid some of the headaches I h… 2. Overview of Web Content Management Systems What are Content Management Systems (CMS) / Backend Systems?Although Content Management Systems may vary slightly among industry definitions, a common usage for a Content Management System is to add new content (information, articles, photos, music) to a website. Dependent upon the complexity of the System, a CMS may additionally offer web page content removal and modification functionality. The true benefit of using such technology for a small to medium sized business owner is reduced maintenan… 3. 7 Benefits of HTML Validation By Herman Drost You may not bother with html validation or writing simple and clean code when designing your web site. Later you may find your site is slow loading, appears incorrectly in the main browsers and does not rank well for the major search engines.Now there are sites that still do rank well even though the html code has many errors. This is because most of the current major browsers are still very forgiving of html mistakes, however future browsers will become more html compliant as the Internet adv… 4. Make Your Online Visitor Visit Your Website Again By Suresh Babu Whether it’s the first time your visitors visiting your website or your regular visitor. Make them visit your site often. Here are some of the ways you can make your visitors visit again.Update your site on a regular basis.Give latest information.People who read your content don’t want to read the same information again and again. Give something interesting for the visitors. It may be useful information, resources, news, latest products, and tutorials or do – it – yourself. Not only visitors w… |
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