|
Home / Internet / Web Design
How To Create Usable Websites
By:Tony Colon
A usable site will: Help users achieve a goal, usually to find something, such as information, or obtain something, such as an article; Make it easy for them to achieve that goal; Make it possible to achieve the goal quickly; Make achieving that goal a pleasant experience.
Good Content is Critical - A site with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that is useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content is available and at what price AND what is not available. A good usable site should define clearly all subscription packages offered.
Ease of Access to Information - Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text and a well-organized structure all contribute to making information easy to find for a wide range of different users. Bearing in mind that many users are inexperienced, it may be necessary to include explanations of things you consider self explanatory. For example, an inexperienced user may need an explanation of how to use a drop down menu. Remember, make it as easy as possible for people to use your website.
Quick Access to Information - This is the aim of the majority of web users. It can be broken into two important aspects: Speed of Page Loading and Speed of Access to Content.
Speed of Page Loading - This requires, in particular, attention to images to ensure they are properly optimized and do not excessively delay load time. It may also mean breaking up long articles and ensuring that important content is at the top of the page where it will load first.
Speed of Access to Content - This is where the 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. Some standards even say that it should be no more than two clicks. One helpful way to speed access to content is to consider each type of user, select the content that they are most likely to be interested in and create links from the home page to one piece of content for each group. This will get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site.
Cleanly Designed Pages
Cleanly designed pages are pleasant to look at and easy to read. It is almost impossible to make a site with an image shown as a tiled background usable - the whole thing is too distracting and confusing. It takes no great design skills to create clean pages; it just requires thought and adherence to the principle that when it comes to design, less usually is more.
Download Status
Most paid membership websites are limited to online access and information download rather than selling products. There should be clear download instructions provided. Your website should also state the size of the file in kilobytes and the estimated time of download for a user having a 56K modem, DSL, Cable and so on.
Usability Problems
While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies may be essential, few small sites can afford such luxuries. However, identifying problems with usability for your site need be no more complicated than asking a few (honest) friends to act as guinea pigs on your site and, if possible, watching them silently as they do this.
Watching users try to find information at your site can be both instructive and quite surprising. Remember that if at any stage you feel the urge to intervene and explain, then you have identified a usability problem.
1. The site does not state its purpose clearly Java applets, huge images, banner ads or flashy elements slow down loading; 10 seconds is about as long as the average user will wait for a page.
2. The site requires specific software to be used. Have you ever actually changed browsers or downloaded a piece of software just to see a site?
3. Poor navigation, too little navigation, too much navigation and, not uncommonly, no navigation at all.
4. Bad design leading to poor readability.
5. Discomfort due to ugly design or inconsistent design. Almost always because a designer overestimated their skills.
6. Irrelevance of content - for example the business site that includes biographies and photos of each of the board members. Happy egos on the board = bored website visitors!
7. Complexity or excessive originality of design, which requires users to learn how it works in order to use it.
8. Inaccessibility because the site cannot be used by browsers for people with disabilities.
Bottom line: A site will be generally usable if: 1. The content is good and relevant; 2. The content is easy to find; 3. The content can be found quickly; 4. The page is pleasant to look at and cleanly designed.
Digg
del.icio.us
Blink
Stumble
Spurl
Reddit
Netscape
Furl
Article keywords: make money online, money making site, automated internet profit system, affiliate programs
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com
Anthony "The Biz Opp Mentor" is a Best Home Based Business Ideas and Opportunities Specialist. www.pluginprofitsite.com/main-18365
|
|
| Top Web Design Articles |
- 1). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix By : Robert Palmer
an article from User Written Resources
1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following;
1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td
and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as;
1.
|
- 2). Irish Graphic Design Industry By : dave4
Graphic design is the use of color, light, balance, contrast, emphasis, proportion, proximity, repetition, texture and a plethora of other elements to create a work of digital art that is pleasing to the eye. Graphic design is about seamlessly molding image and text to convey a theme, message, or often advertise a product or service. Graphic design dates back to prehistoric times.
|
- 3). Adsense: The Smart Investment By : Pat Lovell & Jon Atwood
Over the last 2 years, We have been building a Virtual Adsense Empire of over 500 websites and making some good money. We've also been building content sites for clients using the same system. The system we use is not something that produces 1000's of sites with a click of a button, our system does not build spam websites, nor does it produce the same sites you see over and over and over again.
|
- 4). Some guidelines for Website Design By : Angela Oliver
You have a great product. You also have a great company image and marketing model. Now it is time to implement all your plans and bring together a website. You know very little about websites. Finding websites that have failed is easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Many people come into the internet business with the notion that if they are on the web, they are guaranteed to make money.
|
|
|
- 6). Develop Your Business Web Site for Profits By : Jay Peterson
Looking into developing your business web site? Whether creating a business web site to sell your business products online or just to give the public valuable information, creating a business web site can be an important first step to creating an important presence on the web. Here are some tips on creating a business web site as well as what is involved in getting your business web site off the ground.
|
- 7). Is your printing costs sky rocketing? By : Florie Lyn Masarate
Here are some things you can do to be able to lower your printing costs.
1. Cheap but good quality printer.
There was a time when only a handful of people can afford having one of those colored and digital printers. Now that these things are more rampant, they have become more affordable. Color printers of good quality are even inexpensive already.
|
- 8). Creating A Quality Web Site Design! By : Martin Lemieux
In this article, I will attempt to cover the basics of creating a great quality web design template for your site. Now it's a known fact that the layout or "eye candy" as I put it will determine whether your visitors will stay more than 15 seconds or they will just become another statistic.
In this article, I will attempt to cover the basics of creating a great quality web design template for your site.
|
- 9). How Does Your Website Make Me Feel? By : Philippa Gamse
When people think about the Internet, they think about technology. When people hear that I am a Website strategy expert, they see me as a "techy type".
But for me, the most intriguing aspect of your online business isn't about the technology. It's about human connections, and how you can create these in a virtual environment.
It's commonly understood that "people buy emotionally, not intellectually.
|
- 10). For Automated Sites - PHP and MySQL Are A Perfect Match By : Halstatt Pires
You’ve decided to automate your web site. Now what? Here are some ideas to help you choose how to automate your site.
A bit of programming is going to be necessary if you want to automate a site. There are many types of programs that can be used to automate a web site including JavaScript, PHP, Perl, ASP, Java and more. So, which do you use? For many, it is a personal choice.
|
| New Web Design Articles |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
- 7). Graphic Artists - Who Needs One When You Can Do It Yourself Online? By : Pearl Deloria
Image is everything! Think about it. How many times have you made a judgment about a company based on the quality of the junk mail that you have been sent?
Other people make similar judgements, too. Businesses cannot afford to be thought of as cheapskate in their marketing.
You know that most of your mail goes straight in the trash, and it may grieve you to spend four times the amount, just for it to be thrown away.
|
- 8). How To Style Your Text With CSS By : Hilco van der Meer
Styling text with CSS is really simple. We can define colors, underline it, make it bold, define the font etc etc.
We will start with some basics.
First we define the html where we will be working with. This is the text
1. Colorize your text
We can select the P tag and add some styles to it.
p { color:red;
}
Now our text will turn red. You can define any color code your want or choose one of the 16 standard color names.
|
- 9). What is a web designer anyway? By : Alicia Harper
As a web designer, I get all kinds of requests , for information other than web design, and as a web designer I'm not suppose to really to be able to do things outside of the web design area. I believe there are a few misconceptions about what exactly a web designer does. In this article I am going to nail down exactly what a web designer is and what they should be able to do.
|
- 10). Advanced Joomla Templating (pt1) Using Module Class Suffix By : Robert Palmer
an article from User Written Resources
1. duplicate the styles already used for the particular module, adding a suffix to each style name. this will definitely include some of the following;
1. .module {} 2. div.moduletable {} 3. div.moduletable h3 {} 4. table.moduletable {}/li> 5. table.moduletable th 6. table.moduletable td
and can include other styles used on the content in that section, such as;
1.
|
|
|
