Tackling web usability in 10 quick and easy steps

Web usability can be daunting. There are hundreds of books written on the subject, and numerous experts, gurus and consultants. I know – I’m one of them! I help my clients at SimpleClick in Ipswich, Suffolk to overcome barriers online. The barriers we place in front of our users could be stopping them buying, contacting us, browsing, reading… all manner of things. It all depends on the starting point – what do your website visitors want to do on your website?

You should inherently know this. But if you don’t; if you’re not sure, it really pays to find out now. Ask your customers what they want to do on your site. Also bear in mind the end goal. If you have a site selling complicated or expensive items, don’t feel that your site has failed when users pick up the phone to call you and ask more questions before they buy. If those calls are coming thick and fast after people have browsed your site then you are doing something right! Sometimes even with a comprehensive list of FAQs and all the help content you could think of, people need to speak to other people before they commit to a purchase.

Now you have figured out what your users need your website for, I will try to briefly cover what I think are the 10 most important things you should be looking at to tackle web usability.

Search
I’ll say it straight away. Some of you can skip this point. Your site might not be big enough to need a search facility. That’s fine – don’t just add site search for the sake of it.

For the rest of you who have a lot of content, or a lot of products, you need site search. With search there are two important points – can users find it, and do the results work? Make your search box prominent – best practice says it should be somewhere near the top right hand side of a site. For your search results? Follow the example of Google; clear, consistent links with a couple of lines of text for each result, taking into account spelling errors and so on.

Screen size
A recent client of ours just realised that the design they have been using for years didn’t really work for 60% of their customers, because their clients are using lower screen resolutions than they are. I am definitely not saying that all pages should fit on a 800x600 resolution screen, or that there should be no vertical scroll – I really don’t think this is a major issue nowadays. But you have to be very careful that clicks above the fold don’t result in changes below the fold that users then don’t see.

Navigation
This is supposed to be a quick article! If I were to cover all of the usability points about site Navigation, I would be writing a small paperback. To keep it brief, try to stick to only a 5-10 items in your main navigation. These should be listed across the top of your site or down the left hand side. Sub navigation should be clear, i.e. look different from your main navigation but be obviously tied to it. For sites that stock a vast variety of products, ‘mega dropdown’ navigation like that seen on Marks & Spencer’s site should be used.

Text size
Keep it as large as you can without looking like you’ve built your site for five year olds. Text size matters – of course for older people and the partially sighted but also for those of us whose tired eyes have been staring at our PC screens for so long that we breathe a sigh of relief every time we come across a website with ‘sensible’ text size. It just makes it easier!

Don’t hold back the help
I’ve read a lot of usability guidelines and research papers in the past but very few mention this.

You must make it easy for customers to contact you. Some people hate purchasing online, they want to pick up a phone. Make sure you give them that option. Others will be sat at their PC in the middle of the night and decide to email you.

Give them your postal address (this is a legal requirement in the UK anyway), your phone number, your Twitter, your Facebook, your email, your Skype. Make these prominent on your site – put them in the header (especially your phone number and email).

And most important of all… make sure you respond to all correspondence as quickly as you possibly can. During working hours, this should ideally be the same day.

Login
As with search, you might not need this. You don’t need a ‘member’s area’ for the sake of it. If you are going to have a login facility, it should be easy to use and easy to find. In the left hand navigation is a good place. Don’t push obscure passwords onto your users; allow them to choose their own. Likewise, allow them to have their email address as their username – it’s far easier for them to remember. And if all else fails, give them an easy way of recovering their details if they do forget.

Buttons
The golden rule is that buttons should look like buttons! They should be a nice bright colour to differentiate them from everything else and should look clickable. On an ecommerce page, from a distance, you should be able to clearly see product photographs and buy buttons.

Forms
The golden rule for forms is to provide help, and good error messaging. If you require that they set a password that includes letters and numbers, then tell them this before they press the submit button! Display any errors at the side of the relevant fields, not up at the top of the form. Nice big fields are a must, with clear large text. Check out https://www.postling.com/register.php as an example I really like (note I have no affiliation with this website).

Content
This doesn’t crop up often in usability articles, but it’s incredibly important. If good usability is all about taking down the barriers to customers doing what they need to do on your site, then content has to be part of that. If your content is written for the wrong audience, it’s too long-winded or if there simply isn’t enough of it, then you could be missing a trick. Read your website as if you were a customer. Does it REALLY make sense? Use bullet points as often as you can – writing for the web is all about being succinct and getting the point across before you lose your reader’s interest, while at the same time, providing enough information to make sure you give them confidence in what you are all about.

Research
I have left research until the end, but it is the most important factor in web usability.

Every single client I have worked with has not regretted their investment in usability testing. All have been astounded at the results; all couldn’t wait to implement the recommendations from it.

Usability testing can be simple – you can even do it yourself, although most companies realise that they need to involve someone who can be impartial. Or it can be a long and complex process involving equipment that costs thousands. But it doesn’t need to be.

The reason I am convinced that research is the most important factor in web usability, is that to know what to change, you need to find out what your customers want and need. And the only way to do that is to conduct research.