The impact of usability on your website

The Impact of Usability on Your Website

Allyson Shoshana, Project Manager, Design Spike®, Inc

Agenda

■ What’s usability?■ Understanding visitors to your website■ Writing & formatting for the web■ Images & layout■ Search & navigation■ Social media

What is Usability?“Usability is all about making a website easier to use for a customer…creating a usable website will make customers happy…[and] will make you more money

as a website owner.”Neil Patel – Crazy Egg

Why do you care?

■ 94% of people reject a website based on bad design○ Only 6% of rejections were content related

■ 75% of people will leave your site for a competitors if they can’t find what they want quickly

■ 88% will not return

Photo from NOTCOT.com

Photo from Optimum7.com

The Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thou shalt not forget mobile users

■ 45% of companies rely on desktop sites only■ 25% of web users only use smart devices■ Some say by 2014 mobile internet use will trump desktop■ Local mobile searches will exceed desktop by 2015 ■ Mobile traffic is increasing by 3.5% per month

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thou shalt make links obvious

■ Users scan pages for links “What can I do next?”■ Use a color that is reserved for clickable links only■ Change color of visited links

Bonus: use appropriate link text: “Download Map” vs “Click Here”

Warning: don’t overuse keywords text as link text

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Watch this link!

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Nothing happened, did it?

Thou shalt use high-contrast text

■ Your content is your message; make it readable■ Difficult reading > frustration > negative association with

brand■ Not just elderly: poor screens, lighting■ What does your site look like in greyscale?

Bonus 1: Backgrounds behind text: only when fadedBonus 2: contrastrebellion.com

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thou shalt use clear navigation

■ Be conventional (seriously)■ Be terse■ Use your words, not your icons (mystery meat navigation)■ Streamline (minimize items)■ Highlight current nav item > reinforce user’s model of site

structure

Bonus: reinforce navigation with breadcrumbs, headings

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thou shalt not commit the sin of visual noise pollution

■ Too long to find what you are looking for■ Your customers will leave and shop elsewhere■ Visitors get lost■ Not scannable■ Ugly

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thou shalt not veer from thy site’s established typography

■ Too many fonts, too distracting■ Not readable■ Confuses visitors■ Visitor cannot figure out what content is valuable and what is

not

Bonus: avoid “bad” fonts; don’t use display fonts in body text

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

via Laura Jean Karr

So, what’s your website visitor looking for?

Image via University Of Mexico

Ask Yourself:

■ Who’s your customer?■ What do they want from you?■ What service do you provide to them?■ What do you want them to do once they get to your site?■ How is your content helping them?■ Is your website about you, or them?

Humans don’t read,On the web that is

■ 79% scanned■ 16% read

Why should you care?

Well………they’re ignoring most of what you think they are reading.

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

We spend 69% of our time staring at the left side of your

website

We spend 80% above the fold (wherever that is, these days)

So what’s a website owner to do?

■ Important content goes first (paragraphs & sentences)■ Skip the fluff - NO ONE READS IT■ Capture their attention, fast■ Don’t center text (this drives Will crazy) ■ Keep headers left

Are you writing for the web, or for

yourself?

■ Visitors read less than 20% of the words

■ Higher literacy = more the scanning, SNAP!

■ Lower literacy = more plowing through the text

Formatting Content:Use Headers and SubHeaders

Formatting Content:Include Keywords in Headers or Bold Text

Formatting Content:Use Numbered or Bulleted Lists

Formatting Content:Use Significant Words in Headings

Formatting Content:Use Images of High Quality

Formatting Content:Images Control Where We Look

Formatting content is the new black

Tips to remember

■ Use H1, H2, H3 for headings, sub-headings■ Include keywords in headings or bold (some of the time, use

restraint!)■ Use numbered or bulleted lists■ Omit words

Leverage Social Media with Your Website

■ Use social sharing buttons - make ‘em visible■ Make your content shareable and easy to share - click to

tweet■ Use social media where it makes sense■ Set up Google+ profile and Rel+”Author” Tag ■ Use images people want to share

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

The 10 Commandments of Website Usability According to Will Hall

Thanks!