Usability & Design
Filed Under Usability
When designing your website, your first goal should be usability. Usability should take precedence over SEO and visual appeal. Without a user being able to use your website, both SEO and visual appeal are both pointless.
See example of poor usability on Seth Goden’s Blog: When you need to explain (”click on my head”) how to navigate, your site is not user-friendly.
Remember the primary goal of your website; if your goal is to achieve an end result, make it as easy as possible for the user to accomplish that goal.
10 Rules of usability:
· NO splash pages, unless they serve a legitimate purpose.
· Utilize proper site structure, with all pages accessible from a left or top navigation (Navigation should always be ‘above the fold’).
· Provide an HTML version of Flash sites.
· Make your navigation obvious; don’t make users ‘guess’ where to click.
· No page should leave a user ‘lost’, without full navigational abilities.
· Predictability is more important than prettiness.
· Use dark text on a light background in an easy-to-read font.
· Start content ‘above the fold’; headers shouldn’t take up more than 1/3 of the viewable page (without scrolling).
· Aim to be as accessible as possible.
For more on usability, visit the Software Usability Research Lab, or subscribe to this blog to read coming posts on usability.
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