Bringing it together - The Usable Site Part I

The main focus of much of the articles in this section is usability, so this article is primarily a review and a bringing together of the strands of the others. 

Problems with usability could be said to stem from just two sources: the site itself and the user. In fact the site is always at fault, if a user, however experienced or inexperienced, has problems navigating, getting information or understanding the site, then it is the site's problem.

While websites have become far more complex than heretofore, web users have become LESS rather than more experienced as more and more people go online. It is a mistake to think that the majority of users will be web or even computer savvy and will understand subtle clues about content. Most will not. 

Defining a Usable Site

A usable site will:

• Help users achieve a goal, usually to find something, such as information, or obtain something, such as a book.
• Make it easy for them to achieve that goal
• Make it possible to achieve the goal quickly
• Make achieving that goal a pleasant experience

A site will be generally usable if

• The content is good and relevant
• The content is easy to find
• The content can be found quickly
• The page is pleasant to look at and cleanly designed

Good Content

A site with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that are useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content is available AND what is not available. A site with little content can still be usable if it makes it clear what is not available and points users to where that information can be found.

See also tutorial Planning and Organizing Your Site

Ease of Access to Information

Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text and a well organised 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 find self-explanatory. For example an inexperienced user may need an explanation of how to use a drop down menu (one reason to include alternatives) or of what will happen if they accept your invitation to give their email address to subscribe to an ezine.

See also tutorial Creating a Navigation System

Fast Access to Information

This is the aim of the majority of web users. It can be broken into two important aspects:

1. 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. 

There are other more technical aspects to this also. For example using tables nested several levels deep can slow loading considerably. Stacking tables on the other hand allows at least some content to load almost at once, which is comforting for the user.

2. Speed of Access to content

This is where the much-vaunted 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the home page. 

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 to one piece of content for each group. This will get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site.

Good navigation is also vital and is something of a balancing act - you want enough navigation to allow most users to get from any page of the site to the information they want without cluttering up the navigation too much which could end up confusing many users.

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 used 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! These tips may also help:

• Look at your pages and ruthlessly remove any text or images are not relevant to the page content or an integral part of the design
• Avoid distractions on the page; the primary culprits here are animated gifs. Lose the animated gifs!!!
• Don't over design the page or go beyond your capacity as a designer. If you have limited design skills accept this and stick to simple layouts and colour schemes
• Arrange pages into visual areas that correspond to function - e.g. navigation bar, header, footer, etc - and stick to that layout throughout the site

See also tutorial Page Layout and Design

Usability Problems

While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies may be not just useful but 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.

Some Common Usability Problems 

• 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. 
• The site requires specific software to be used - e.g. 'Download Flash Now!' 'Best viewed in…'. Have you ever actually changed browsers or downloaded a piece of software just to see a site?
• Poor navigation, too little navigation, too much navigation and, not uncommonly no navigation at all
• Bad design leading to poor readability
• Discomfort due to bad, ugly, design or inconsistent design. Almost always because a designer overestimated their skills.
• 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 users.
• Complexity or excessive originality of design, which requires users to learn how it works in order to use it. Mystery Meat Navigation is a prime candidate here.
• Inaccessibility because the site cannot be used by browsers used by people with disabilities

In Part II of this article we will look at some practical methods of Usability testing.