ISEdb.COM

During the design phase of building a website all too often
we find that the end result is really nothing more than what somebody decided
“looked good”. In some cases it’s a combination (or compromise) of what
a handful of individuals have determined to be “good enough”. What
many fail to realize is that web design and visitor usability go hand in hand.

How the site is developed, along with the underlying coding
structure, plays a significant role on whether your site meets the usability
requirements of your audience. Below are a number of individual elements that
must be considered in every website design. While each plays a minor role over
the total usability of a website, together they add up to be much more than the
sum of their parts.

Look
and feel

The overall look and feel of your site must meet your target
audience’s expectation. It’s not enough just to look good, you will have
visitors with industry specific wants and needs. Meet them.

Industry
best practices

Site must be consistent with best practices and usability
guidelines established by other sites in the same industry.

Design
simplicity

Reduce visual noise as much as possible. Keeping the website
design simplified keeps visitors interacting with your website rather than
hunting through unnecessary design elements.

Searchability

Information on your site, including content, navigation,
product categorization and site-search, must be clearly laid out and easy to
understand and be effective at getting visitors to areas of the site they need.

Link
descriptions

Adding descriptions such as link titles and alt attributes
within each link can help overall usability, providing a reference to what
should be expected if the visitor clicks the link. Encompassing more
descriptive text within the link text is also highly valuable.

Links
organized with lists

When referencing specific areas of your site and/or products
all in a single paragraph, it can be beneficial to break the content into
bulleted lists. This allows for easy scanning for desired information.

Breadcrumbs

Using breadcrumb menus provides an easy reference to the
current page a visitor resides on, as well as their location in the overall
site structure. These visual cues enhance the user’s experience, even if not
actually used.

Contact
and support info

Links to contact, about us, and other customer support pages
must be easy to find and obviously accessible to all visitors regardless of
page or architectural location and obvious to access.

Font
size

Font size should rarely be less than 10 points. Larger fonts
are easier to read which can help gain conversions.

Font
face

The Verdana font was developed specifically for web use for
its ease on the eyes when viewed on a computer monitor. Serif fonts such as
Times should be avoided. Also keep the number of fonts used to a minimum.

Font
scalability

Allow visitors to resize the text size in their browser by
using scalable rather than fixed-width fonts. This allows visitors additional
convenience based on their needs.

Short
sentences

Long sentences can often be difficult to follow. Sentences
should be kept short (under 15 words) in order to enhance overall
comprehension.

Paragraph
width

Using a fixed-width website design can improve readability
of content. Variable width designs cause sentence stretching, making it more
difficult for the reader to maintain their place as they read.

Color
usage

Important visual cues should not rely on color only. Site
must be able to maintain navigation effectiveness without color dependency.

Contrast

Provide significant contrast between text, background and
other elements on the page. Dark text on a light background is preferred for
easy reading.

Saturated
colors

Avoid the use of saturated colors. Such colors can quickly
cause eye fatigue, forcing the visitor off the site looking for more browsable
websites.

Animated
graphics

Repetitive animated graphical content is distracting and
reduces retention. Avoid any animations that don’t specifically enhance the
user-experience and keep visitors focused on what’s important.

Action
objects>

Areas and objects of your website that request/require
action should be visually different from other objects. Linked images and text
should stand out significantly from non-linked.

Graphics,
multimedia & plugins

All additional components added to the website must be more
than mere eye-candy. Each graphical and multimedia addition should enhance
rather than distract from the visitor’s experience.

Link
formatting

Standard link formatting (blue and underlined) should be
used for textual links and it should be apparent when a link has been visited.

Text
coloring

Standard paragraph text should not be the same color, or
near the same color, as standard link text. A clear distinction should be made
between the two.

White
space

Site should use white space liberally and avoid cramming
pages with too much information, causing unnecessary clutter.

Horizontal
scrolling

Site design should never require visitors to scroll
horizontally when browser is in full-screen mode. All information should be
assessable with only vertical scrolling required.

Printing

Pages should be designed to provide easy-to-read documents
when printed. Printer friendly pages or a print version of the CSS file should
be considered.

Browser
functionality

Site should not disable visitor’s normal browser
functionality such as right-click mouse, back button navigating, and forcing
links to open in new or resized browser windows.

When it comes to improving usability to achieve higher
conversions, there is no more obvious place to start than in your website
design. More often than not we’ve seen websites undergo a complete re-design
and then find their conversion rates jump overnight, without any additional
traffic being brought to the website. Usability should not be an afterthought
to the design process, but should be on the forefront driving the design from
the ground up.