Web Design & Development

Usability

Here is how to design for usability in a nutshell:

Test early and test often
Test the right people--only those who fit your user profile. If you do not have a user profile, create one.
Be simple
Be consistent
Be relevant
Be useful
Be clear
Remember, we don't have a clue where users have come from when they enter our sites
No orphaned pages
Many folks are looking for something in particular

Some ways to improve usability include:

shortening the time to accomplish tasks,
reducing the number of mistakes made,
reducing learning time,
and improving people's satisfaction with a system.
Follow established web conventions

The Thoughts of Some Well Known Usability Experts

JAKOB NIELSON

Books: Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity; Usability Engineering; Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

Good design: simplicity, less is more, and the idea of supporting users' tasks and getting out of their way.

“A lot of people have misconceptions that usability is one of the things you do and afterwards everything is going to be good. But the reality is that you have to integrate it within your project and when you think you're done with that area of usability you go onto the next stage of the cycle. So the basic recommendation is that before you do any design you do some user testing of how people use your Web site.”

“The biggest factor is a management decision to prioritize usability and consistency. Especially on intranets, we find tremendous usability problems caused by a lack of design standards that allows every department to put up pages in weird and conflicting designs with poor integration.”

JARED SPOOL
Book: Web Site Usability

Good design: Know the goals of the site. Know the goals of the users. Make sure that content is achieving your goals (including graphics, advertising, and so on). Make sure the developers know how the site makes money.

Designing a web site, either usable or unusable, is hard work. There are many details that designers need to take into account, such as browser differences, content management, information architecture, and graphic design. Providing proven guidelines to developers can reduce their already overburdened workload, making one aspect of design that much simpler. However, we are assuming the guidelines actually result in more usable sites. This is where things start to get murky.

Once you start watching your users work with your products and documentation, the usability problems will become obvious. Correct the nuisance problems when you can, but remember that you’ll get the biggest improvements by fixing the exasperation problems.

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