Joanne Hung, Usability Specialist, The Usability Company

Web design has come a long way since the beginning of the Internet, with so much experience behind us there are still sites that are difficult to use. The following article addresses some of the usability issues that should be considered during the development of any website.

Make things obvious

There is a common phrase that I have heard used in the development teams that I have worked in; it is “Dumb users!” Unfortunately, it is too often the case that there is a mismatch between how developers expect users to behave, and how they behave in reality. We all know that users are not “dumb”, after all we are all users, they just sometimes behave in ways we do not expect.

In my experience I have found that users, far from being “dumb”, are just extremely cautious about the Internet. It is all too easy to forget when we are at work, surfing the net on high speed connections and using high resolution screens, that there is a large group of Internet users that are still connecting with slow modems and low spec computers.

Typical users are wary about clicking on links to unknown sites because each click could mean several seconds’ delay before the page downloads. Even after that the user may find that the page is not what they expected or what they wanted, so their time is wasted. 

Users want to understand what they are looking at with minimal amount of effort. Many people will arrive at your site having been referred to it by search engines. Will they be able to tell what your site is all about from any page? Will users be able to predict where your links will take them and do they get what they are looking for?

Navigation structures have to be simple, so that users get an idea of where they are going before they get there. This is why usability practitioners expound the rule that explanatory links are more usable than short links such as “click here” or “more”.

If you are not sure whether your site is easy to use, get a few people who are unfamiliar with your development to sit down and use it. Observe their behaviour and ask them whether they are getting what they expect. You may well be surprised at what you find out. 

Help the user get what they want

Can the user find the information they want easily? Navigation can be a major issue in large sites, with users getting lost in deep layers of pages. The larger the site is, the more important it is that attention is paid to the User Centered Design of the site. This will help ensure that users can find information easily and that the site can scale up if extra information is added to the site. Information Architects can design efficient information structures for your site to create sensible information structures and at the same time ensure that your site can scale up to accommodate new sections and information.

Are there obstacles that prevent the user from getting to what they want? 

Registrations and logins are off-putting for most users, they take time to fill in and users are loath to give out their personal information to organisations that they are not familiar with and have no confidence in. If you want a user to register then give them access to as many areas as possible, they will be more likely to want to register once they have gained confidence in your offering and have become aware of the benefits that they will gain from it.

Understand that their time is precious too

A large group of users still access the Internet over phone lines with 56k modems. There is nothing more annoying to users than having to wait several seconds for a page to download, every delay increases the likelihood that they will get distracted and leave your site.

The use of features such as flash intros and animations increase download times. These not only slow the user down by forcing them to wait longer for pages to download, but also often prove to be more of an annoyance to users than benefit. 

Far from actually grabbing the users attentions we now regularly see that users are automatically ignoring graphics and animations. “Banner blindness” is a frequently seen phenomenon in which users ignore anything that looks like advertising. 

Get to know your users

There are three main questions here. Do you know who your users are, and have you ever met any of them? Do you know what they expect from your site when they get there? Get to know your users as early as possible in the design process. Develop scenarios and personas to make sure that your design accommodates their needs and limitations. Designs can be evaluated from the early stages of development. Fully functional pages are not needed before useful testing can be performed, useful feedback on the usability of your site can still be gained at the wireframe or paper prototype stage. 

Do you know what screen resolutions they will be working at?

Not many users have the luxury of high-resolution monitors. Many will be operating at 800x600 resolution meaning that they only get to see a very small portion of each page at the time and have to rely on scrolling to view other parts. These days, people tend to be familiar with vertical scrolling, but horizontal scrolling still stumps most users. All pages should be checked at low resolutions, and particular attention should be paid to whether important information lies below the “fold” of the window, the limit of what can be viewed in browser window without scrolling, as users may judge your page on it’s first appearance and may leave without bothering to scroll down to the bottom of a page.

Users are not dumb; we know how annoying it is not being able to find information on a site, and how confusing it is when websites and their functionalities do not behave the way we expect them to. The ideas that I have written about should be given some consideration throughout your design and development process. Following the advice given should ensure that your site is easier to use and that people are less likely to abandon it, thinking “Dumb website!”

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