THE IMPORTANCE OF USABILITY
When you write an article or a post about USABILITY (UX), it is important to describe and argue the subject so that the reader can understand what we are going to develop. Web usability is the ease of use of a website. Some broad goals of usability are the presentation of information and choices in a clear and concise way. It should not ambiguous but the placement of important items in appropriate areas.
Usability is synonymous with comfort, it has become to the basis for a great user experience (UX) to build products that are efficient and easy to use.
We should pay attention to the Key Principles Of Good Website Usability when you designing a website:
- Availability and Accessibility
This principle complement the usability of a website and it is relevant from the point of view of the user, the developer and, of course, the client. What does accessibility means? It is the universal access at your website successfully. That means that every user can access to it regardless of their language, location or, for example, type of device. If someone wants to visit your website and it is not possible for that person to do it, your web page becomes useless to them.
Some things that we have to consider while we are developing a website are:
- It is necessary that you invest in a good hosting service. One of the principal reasons is that it avoid errors when a user is trying to load your site and it also is one of the things that improves the speed of a website.
- Your site needs to be adaptable to differents screens. Nowadays people use a lot of devices to open a webpage (mobile phone, tablet, desktops, laptops etc). Not only this but also they can reduce the size of the page to watch other things meanwhile. For example, someone may be looking for a product and, also, he or she may want to read the comments about this on another website. That could imply that they can have these tabs of the computer with a smaller size than the screen to see them at the same time.
- Other important thing is avoiding broken links. That imply a minucius and constant work to assure that there is no 404 errors in your website. Why is this important? Because that may cause the user to go to another web page.
- Clarity
It is essential that your web has a defined structure. If the important sections are not clear, the user can feel frustrated and may suffer a lack of interest and leave your page. A complicated and counterintuitive website without easy navigation provoques rejection in your potential clients. It is important to know that your users go to your web with a specific goals and, if they are unsuccessful, they are not going to come back. We have a duty to anticipate why users visit.
Here are some things we should consider:
- Simplicity: make it simple. Focus on the important part and do not include irrelevant or unnecessary elements.
- Familiarity: for example, it is a common use to include three lines to indicate the drop down menu in a web when you open it in a mobile. That’s why it is a good idea to look for inspiration on other websites.
- Guidance: there must be some elements that help and guide the user through your web. That makes the experience more pleasant and ease and that generate a positive memory in the people that visit your web.
- Direct feedback: ask your user what they want and what they would improve on your webpage. There is no better feedback than the users themselves.
- Learnability
You should do an intuitive design in your web , to make use of what people already know, or create something new that is easy to learn. People prefer handling familiar situations rather than unfamiliar ones.
If you are going to use new concepts in your design, you should help users during the initial learning phase. For example, you can offer additional information, or instructions the first time they use your site. Keep it simple and visual to help people remember it.
- Credibility
The most important thing about your website will be people find the content they are looking for and they trust you and your web.
The users should know you are a real company with real people. Offer a description about you, your contact details and a physical address. The content also plays an important role in your site. Make sure you are honest and precise about your content. Avoid mistakes, such as incorrect grammar or misspellings. If you want to have more credibility, you can show testimonials, work references, or the number of your social media followers.
If you want to check the usability of your website, you can ask yourself some questions.
Why Usability Is Important
Actually, usability is a necessary condition for a website. If it is difficult to use, it is not clear, or the information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, people choose another one. There are plenty of other websites available, at the least difficulty, people look for another web.
How to Improve Usability
There are many ways for improving usability, but the most basic and useful is user testing. We can use screen capture tools to see what people are doing on-site, host user-testing days where we can observe people using our website live and listen to some user narrate their experience The best way is watching what they actually do.
When to Work on Usability
Before finishing the new design, test to identify the good parts that you should keep or emphasize, and the bad parts that give users trouble. It is a good method, test other similar web designs to get data and conduct a field study to see how users behave in their natural habitat.
Make paper prototypes of one or more new design ideas and test them.
Where to Test
Usability Testing is a technique used to evaluate a product by testing is on users. You can construct a scenario wherein a person performs a list of tasks that someone who is using the website for the first time is likely to perform. Meanwhile you observe and listen to the person who is performing the tasks while taking notes. Watching someone tries a website is a great way to test whether the site is usable because you will immediately be able to see whether they are able to perform the tasks and any difficulties they have while doing so.
When I have to stop testing
The answer is never. To improve your website is necessary to test over and over again. That requires user research and test A/B to know what is the best options and what works and who don’t.
To sum up, usability is an essential part when you design and develop a website. This is a process that you need to revise constantly considering user necessities. If you keep in mind some basic principles about usability discussed here, you will have more chances of success with your webpage.
