In this article we'll cover some basics of website usability, in other
words, making your website user-friendly. This article in no way covers
everything you should keep in mind prior to designing your website -
there is much more. I have listed five questions you should initially
consider. I will be brief with each question just to give you a few
tips to get you started. Keep in mind that testing is the most important
task and should be conducted frequently.
a.Do visitors know which page they are viewing?
The best way to ensure your visitors don't get lost
on your website is if you title your pages. Make sure this title is
the title in your navigation area too. On your home page, or the one
that is your "index.html" or "index.htm", you don't
have to title the page "HOME PAGE". It could be titled "About
Us" or a page you want your visitors to see as soon as they open
your website. If your "index.html" page is your "About
Us" page, then put the header/title "About Us" at the
top of the page. In other words, every page should have a heading so
that your visitors will know what page they are currently viewing.
b.Can your visitor easily get to other pages
using your navigational area?
Make sure that if you have 5 main pages in your website,
there are 5 links in your navigation area with the exact titles as the
titles on your pages. With this in mind, don't make your titles too
long. If you have articles on your website, make one link titled "Articles"
in your navigation area. On the "Articles" page, list your
article titles in the body of that particular page because the article
titles will be longer.
c.Does my background color and text color make
a good combination?
You will need to take this into serious consideration.
If your color scheme is unappealing, visitors will leave no matter how
good your subject matter may be. If the combination causes eye strain
or headache, your visitors will leave your website and may not return.
Examples: blue background with red text, lime green background with
yellow text, red background with yellow text, etc. One other background
I would like to mention: patterned/tiled backgrounds. These can be overwhelming
to the eye. No text will be readable on these types of backgrounds -
at least not without difficulty. If you must have a patterned/tiled
background, make it look like a watermark - full color patterned/tiled
backgrounds will send your visitors away quicker than ice cream melts
on a hot stove.
d.Are my photos too big or do I have too many
on a page?
If it takes longer than a few seconds for your webpage
to load, then your images are too big or you have too many on a page.
It is not necessary for a photo to take up the space of an entire browser
window. Too many photos, without a doubt, will slow your website down
to a crawl, even on a high-speed connection. Most people will leave
your website before the images finish downloading. You can make the
images small enough for a slideshow or create thumbnails so that your
visitors can select which images they want to see. Once your visitors
click on the image to see a larger view, make even that image small
enough to see all the details, but not big enough to slow down your
website. There are quite a few image editors out there to use - some
are even free. I use Macromedia's Fireworks to optimize my images. They
have a tool where I can make my images smaller without losing clarity.
e.How do I test my pages for errors and user-friendliness?
Have a few other people look at your website. If you
don’t think that friends and family will want to hurt your feelings,
find a site with your color scheme; tell them that this website is not
your website, but you would like their opinion on the color scheme and
if it is difficult to read. You can also post your URL to various forums
to ask them for a critique of your website. If this is your first time
testing, you can ask for feedback so that you can get a variety of comments.
Keep a copy of the answers you get so that in the future you can refer
back to what people have said about certain features. Later on, you
can put together a checklist to go by for every website you design.
I wouldn't use just one checklist to check all websites, but a checklist
would be a good start. Whether you are a beginner or expert website
designer, you will always need to test multiple times. You have a great
deal of choices to check for errors on your site. I like to use W3C's
validators to check for errors and to bring my websites up to standard.
Making your website user-friendly is one of the best
things you can accomplish for yourself and your visitors. Taking the
time to ensure usability is nothing compared to how many visitors you
will lose if you have a not-so-friendly website. Ensuring readability,
fast downloading, and performing multiple tests will get you started
in the right direction of designing user-friendly websites. Good Luck!
Send me a link if you want me to critique your website.
About the Author
This article was written by Regina Stevens, owner
of Keep It
Simple Websites (http://keepitsimplewebsites.com).
If you would like to send comments, email the name of the article and
where you found the article to articles[@]itjsatlanta.com. Take the
brackets out before sending me an email.
