If you want your website to be successful with huge traffic the only ingredient you need to inculcate is the usability. The usability helps your users getting what they are looking for.
There is a common myth that the usability is very expensive, and it is true to some extent but not completely. There are a few multinational companies who shell out thousands of dollars on usability tests and research.
Thankfully there are some tips to get the easy usability for your website and here in this piece of writing we are going to let you know about those tips. Following these tips you can achieve usability for your website without even having the expertise of it or without getting the expensive equipment for usability testing.
Just by reading the good usability articles the web designers and webmasters can get good knowledge about the basics of usability and its implementation.
Below are a few tips to get usability in your website-
1. Tagline is important
A tagline is the statement which represents a company, a personality, a mission/motto or even a philosophy. Remember that the tagline you are adding must be appropriately relevant and should be clearly described on the front page of your website.
Statics prove that a website takes just eight seconds to capture the attention and to decide whether or not to browse the site further. Thus it is very important to insert a tagline in your home page to bind the visitor on your website.
2. Implement Site Search
Along with the tagline, site search is also a very important component of a website to make it usable. In-site search helps the users to search for what they are exactly looking for which otherwise would be difficult to search in the website of numerous pages.
According to the successful bloggers, a search box should be 27 characters wide to make the text clearly visible and easy to use. The search box should be kept on the top side of the home page and every other page of the website. It is the most locatable position in a website. Make sure that you are not just adding a search box; add the search button along with it to make it clear to the visitors.
3. Extensive Graphics may slow down your website
If you are using the excessive graphics in your website to make it look beautiful, you are not doing right. Extensive use of graphics is in fact quite harmful for the usability of your website. It makes the website heavy to load and thus decreases the usability considerably.
4. Use Site maps
Using the site maps help the user to navigate through your website and this certainly increase the usability. It also improves the search engine optimization for your website. The site map can either be in a document form or as a web page; all that matters is that it needs to be typically organized in hierarchical fashion.
The search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN have started offering a site map protocol which is somewhat similar to the site map’s page. The only difference is that the data is organized in XML format. The site map generators create the documents for your specified URL.
5. The Workflow is important
Anything that a user is doing on your website is workflow. The workflow in the website includes filling a form, registering on the website, subscribing, browsing categories, archiving etc. Make sure that you add the cancel option in the page. By not allowing them to cancel, you are actually forcing the user to finish it even if they are not willing to.
The JavaScript breaks the workflow usually thus they are not recommended to be used in the website. Give the proper and understandable links to make it easy for the users. Change the color of the links to follow, it would ease the navigation.
6. Make sure that your WebPages are easy to scan
When you are creating your Web Pages, make sure that they are easily readable and also are easy to scan as many users prefer reading the hard copy of the Web Page. The ideal way to write the content in a Web Page is in F format; means start it from upper left and move down little starting from the left again.
Make use of the paragraphs, good headings, bolded text, bigger titles etc. The first two paragraphs are most important and thus it may contain all the important information you want to give your reader. Sub-headings and bullets make the page more readable and understandable.
7. Avoid using the Misleading UI Controls
UI (user interface) actually mean the important components, elements and widgets of a Web Page that a user generally interacts with. For example- drop down list, button etc. Never make a mistake to design a graphic which looks like a button but is not a button actually. By doing this you are misguiding your reader and also never make a text look like a link which is not actually a clickable link.
This misleading buttons or designs may make the user think that linked page is not found or the link is broken which will definitely create a negative impact on the user.
8. Feedback is important
Feedback helps the user to understand more about your website. This is the only mode by which the user can know what actually is going-on on your website. If you have any error on any of your Web Page, which is quite often, mention it clearly with a good and understandable error message.
9. Too much of JavaScript is harmful
It is not necessary that every user coming on your website has the JavaScript enabled on their system. The user who do not have JavaScript enabled or do not have the up-to-date browser may not be able to access your website. So by using the JavaScript extensively we are actually blocking some of our users.
10. Avoid CAPTCHAs
A CAPTCHA is used to discriminate between the human and the robots, but it sometimes may irritate your user and when the user belong to China or some other country where letter and numerals are written differently, it may create a problem and thus decrease the usability of your website.
Yogesh, creative designer from Asia who loves to design great website designs, logos for accounting recruitment firms and corporate stationary. He is also a owner of Harley Davidson and you will mostly find him on road trip while he is not working.
It is true to some extent but not completely. There are a few multinational companies who shell out thousands of dollars on usability tests and research.free wed design .
Interesting article on a subject that many don’t take into consideration when planning a website. These tips are very helpful and can be implemented by anyone. Thanks for sharing.