Galaxy Consulting
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Our Process
    • Meet Us at Industry Events
  • Services
    • Business Analysis and Usability
    • Content and Knowledge Management
    • Records Management
    • Information Architecture
    • Enterprise Search
    • Taxonomy and Metadata Development and Management
    • Document Control
    • Information Governance
  • Solutions
    • Information Overload
    • Compliance
    • E-Discovery
    • Internal and External Websites
    • Enterprise Search
    • Collaboration and New Employees’ Onboarding
    • Customer Service
    • Manual Processes
    • Vulnerability of Sensitive Information
  • Portfolio
    • Our Brochure
    • Our Clients
    • Case Studies
    • Presentations
    • Press Releases >
      • Galaxy Consulting Receives 2016 Best of Redwood City Award
      • Galaxy Consulting Receives 2015 Best of Redwood City Award
    • Videos
  • Testimonials
  • Blog
  • Free Consultation
  • Contact Us
  • Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

Web Site Usability

12/8/2012

0 Comments

 
Picture
Web usability is an approach to make a web site easy to use for a user, without the requirement that any specialized training is undertaken or any special manual is read. Users should be able to intuitively determine the actions they need or can perform on the web page s, e.g., press a button to perform some action.

Some broad goals of usability could be: present the information to the user in a clear and concise way, give the correct choices to the users in an obvious way, remove any ambiguity regarding the consequences of an action (e.g. clicking on delete/remove/purchase), place important items in an appropriate area on a web page or a web application.

When you designed your web site, you want to promote it everywhere with big bold letters saying, "Hello everybody! Come and look at my web site! It is just great!" When you submit your web site to forums for web site reviews, you may write, "What do you think of my web site?"

This is the big mistake to ask someone to look at your web site. There is never a single answer. To understand if your web site meets its usability requirements, ask people to try it out. They should be able to answer the following questions: what is the purpose of this web site? what can I do here? what needs does it fulfill?

The 5 seconds test tool is one way to explore immediate impressions of the web site users. You can experiment by asking them what the site is about, to see if the site’s purpose is communicated clearly.

The biggest mistake is to believe that web site appearance matters the most. How it looks is only one part of the process. How it performs is another. What it can give back to site visitors and how effectively it conveys that information will matter even more.

Writing content for web users is an important task. The main goal of this task is the ease with which the web site content is read and understood by your users. When your content is highly readable, your audience is able to quickly digest the information you share with them.

Keep the web site content as concise as possible. Users have very short attention spans and they are not going to read articles thoroughly and in their entirety. So, get to the point as quickly as possible. Place your most important content high on the page. Think of a newspaper: the top story is always prominently displayed above the fold. Use headings to break up long text. Use bulleted lists where possible. 

Format the text in such a way that it is easy to read it and just to scan a web page.Keep colors and typefaces consistent. Visitors should never click on an internal link in your site and wonder if they've left your web site. Choose your colors and fonts carefully and use them consistently throughout the site.

Keep page layout consistent. Use a Web site template to enforce a uniform page structure. Visitors should be able to predict the location of important page elements after visiting just one page in your site. 

Design a clear and simple navigation system. a good navigation system should answer three questions: Where am I? Where have I been? Where can I go? 

The navigation system should be in the same place on every page and have the same format. Visitors will get confused and frustrated if links appear and disappear unpredictably. Don't make your visitors guess where a link is going to take them. Visitors should be able to anticipate a link's destination by reading the text in the link or on the navigation button. Users don't have time or patience to guess.

Large or complex sites should always have a text-based site map in addition to text links. Every page should contain a text link to the site map. Lost visitors will use it to find their way, while search engines spiders will have reliable access to all your pages.

Include a home page link inside your main navigation system. Visitors may enter your site via an internal page, but hopefully they will want to head for the home page. Link the site logo to the home page. Most sites include their logo somewhere at the top of every page - generally in the top, left-hand corner. Visitors expect this logo to be a link to your site's home page. They'll often go there before looking for the home link in the navigation system.

Include a site search box. A robust site search feature helps visitors quickly locate the information they want. Make the search box prominent and be sure that it searches all of your site, and only your site.

Check your page display at in a number of different screen resolutions to make sure that your most important content is visible when the page loads.

Include a form for users' feedback on your site.

A good brand creates or reinforces a user's impression of the site. When your site is strongly branded, that means that visitors will think of you first when they go shopping for your product or service.

Conduct usability testing. Usability testing helps you to replicate the experience of the average web site user and correct problems before real users find them.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2022
    March 2022
    January 2022
    July 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    July 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All
    Alfresco
    Arena
    Automatic Classification
    Autonomy
    Big Data
    Business Analysis
    Case Studies
    Change Control
    Change Management
    Cloud Content Management
    Cloud Ecm
    Cloud Enterprise Content Management
    Cms
    Collaboration
    Compliance
    Concept Searching
    Confluence
    Content Analysis
    Content Localization
    Content Management
    Content Management Systems
    Content Strategy
    Controlled Vocabulary
    Coveo
    Crisis Management
    Dams
    Data Integrity
    Data Security
    Digital Asset Management
    Digital Asset Management System
    Digital Transformation
    Dita
    Document Control
    Document Control Systems
    Documents Management
    Documentum
    Drupal
    Dublin Core Metadata
    Ecm
    E Discovery
    Engineering Change Process
    Enterprise Content Management
    Enterprise Search
    ERoom
    E-Signature
    Exalead
    Fatwire
    Gamification
    Gmp
    Gxp
    Hadoop
    Information Architecture
    Information Governance
    Information Overload
    Information Technology
    Iso 9001
    IT Systems Validation
    Joomla
    Knowledge Management
    Knowledge Management Applications
    Metadata
    Mobile Devices
    Naming Conventions
    Ontology
    Open Source Cms
    Open Text
    Oracle
    OWL
    Personalization
    RDF
    Records Management
    Risk
    Search Applications
    Self Service
    SEO
    Sharepoint
    Social Media
    Structured Content
    Taxonomy
    Teamsite
    Thesaurus
    Tridion
    Twiki
    Unified Data
    Usability
    User Adoption
    User Centered Design
    Vasont
    Vivisimo
    Web Site Content
    Web Site Design
    Wiki

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.