Web Usability Best Practices

As websites and applications continue to proliferate, across platforms and devices, we have found that a surprising number still break elementary usability principles. So, we are going back to the basics and starting a newsletter and blog series that will focus on Usability Best Practices. The first of this series will explore the often forgotten basics of website usability. To begin, we will review our 7 Usability Guidelines for evaluating the customer experience across websites and applications.

Usability Guidelines

1. User Control: Enable exploration by letting users initiate and control actions based on their primary objectives


2. Communication & Relevance: Ensure site messaging and value proposition are aligned with target users' objectives


3. Simplicity & Scannability: Present information in a manner that is intuitive and easy to digest based on users' intent


4. Navigation Feedback: Keep users informed throughout the experience and clearly indicate task progression


5. Consistency: Provide consistent page layout / organization to help orient users to the site experience and set expectations


6. Aesthetic Integrity: Incorporate graphic elements and visual cues to build a connection and guide users through the site


7. Help & Forgiveness: When soliciting user information, clearly indicate what information is required vs. optional, and provide help and guidance

To begin our series, we will focus on our Usability Guideline #1 - User Control. The premise of the user control guideline is to ensure that site visitors can navigate easily without the need for instructions to accomplish a task.

User Control

There are 5 key best practices that compose this guideline, as follows:

1. Site architecture is focused on user-centered tasks; lets users initiate and control

This guideline seems so straightforward; however, so many sites miss the boat on this guideline for a variety of reasons. Within a company there is often competition for home page and menu space between departments or initiatives, or the terminology used is internal or marketing terminology that may not make sense to users. To avoid these pitfalls, try to view your site with a fresh set of eyes, as someone who may not know your site or company. Consider the following:

• The site is organized around the key tasks that users are coming to perform, not necessarily what you want them to perform or that you think are most important. This does not mean that you shouldn't be using your site to promote important initiatives or to market to consumers, but those should be considered secondary to the primary tasks.
• The terminology and link names you are using are easily understood. While you may have branded or creative names for your products, services or divisions of the company, most users are probably not familiar with these labels, making them ill-suited for link names or terms within the main navigation - users should never be guessing where to find what they want or what will be found in a specific section of the site.
• Along the same lines, you may want everyone who comes to your site to view the great viral video or commercial you have created, hear your new theme song or interact with your new tool, but many users will not be interested in doing so. While forcing the interaction by having a video begin on entry to the site or playing music or beginning interaction with a tool or game may give your effort more exposure, it may alienate some users. If, instead, you offer users the choice of viewing, listening to, or interacting with a specific piece of content, then the interaction will be much more successful as you will be reaching those users who genuinely want this information. This rule also applies to opt-in / opt-out. Let a user choose to opt-in. Not only will you eliminate the risk of frustrating or annoying the user, but you will also achieve a higher quality list of engaged users, those who want to interact with you, because they choose to.

2. Navigation menu is apparent and there are clear buttons to initiate actions / processes

• Users can identify the navigation menu immediately, whether entering the site from a home page or if dropped deeper into the site via a link or search engine result. There should never be a question of how to navigate the site - no matter where the user is within it.
• The navigation menu remains consistent both in placement and in functionality. This means if your navigation begins horizontally across the page, it should remain there throughout the site. Likewise, if you employ left navigation, the navigation should always remain on the left. Additionally, drop-down or fly-out menus or sub-categories on click or roll-over can all be effective methods of getting visitors to content of interest quickly, but they are only useful if they are truly necessary, and remain active and accessible throughout the site. Consistency is key for ease of navigation.
• Button = action. Simple and straightforward. If a user sees a button on your site it should indicate an action. If two actions are available on a page, such as "Buy Now" or "Cancel", then a text link can be used for the path less traveled (e.g., if you want to minimize the path to cancel, or if it would remove a user from a clear purchase path). However, a button should be used for "Buy Now".
• The positioning of action buttons is also important - the button should be near where the user wants to take the action associated with the button. While this is often straightforward within a process, often the buttons to begin a process are misplaced. For example, a cruise website wants a user to begin the booking process from a page with specific cruise details, but the button to begin that process is at the top of the page. The user is most likely to be enticed to begin the process after scrolling down and reading the information they are seeking - meaning they are at the bottom of the page. So the button should also be at the bottom of the page.

3. Content is classified in ways that are useful to customers

• Content is sorted and labeled in an intuitive manner that makes sense to the user. Drop-down menus should not hide important content, but should provide the key categories for drilling down further into the site.
• Categories and sub-categories should be mutually exclusive as much as possible and limited to a digestible number of links to view at one time (usually 5-7). Card sorting can help you determine how your users would group content and what category names are most intuitive
• User-friendly titles are clear and concise. Avoid getting too creative because users may only get confused. For example, if your company's blog is named "Lemon Squeeze," it makes more sense to just call it "Blog," so users can better understand where they are going when they click on the link.
• Do not rely on a sitemap as a backup for users who cannot navigate your site. A user should never have to resort to a sitemap because they cannot find their way. A more recent trend is to offer expanded footers which can be an effective way to establish quick links to key content not immediately offered directly from the home page.

4. Site provides ability to manipulate product lists (e.g. sort, filter, etc.)

• Think of the filters and sort tools as funnels. A funnel helps optimize the users' experience by making it easier for them to find exactly what they are looking for; instead of sifting through 300 pages, a filter can narrow down the product or content to a more manageable number.
• When it comes to sorting, the basics often include the option to sort by price (low to high, high to low), rating, best-selling, and most relevant.
• Filtering is especially useful when there is too much content to display on a page. Most filtering capabilities reside on the left or top of a page and allow users to multi-select options and easily remove selections.

5. Site provides contextual information / cross-selling based on user actions

• When done successfully, cross-selling is a win/win. If you imply to your customers, "Hey, I see you added this to your cart, maybe you would like to know what goes well with it, or what other people who purchased this item viewed." As long as it does not intrude or require an additional step to view in the purchase process, it is usually welcomed.
• Another example of contextual information can be linking people to similar articles or content that is related to what they are currently viewing. It can increase time spent on your site - especially if users land on your page from a search engine. They probably are focused on the topic they came for, and so offering similar options can entice them to click around more to better inform a purchase decision.
• When you are cross-selling to users is just as important as what you are cross-selling. For example, once someone decides they are taking a trip to Disneyworld and they are in the booking process, you may want to wait until after they have booked their flight before showcasing specific activities they can do in the area. Always put yourself in the minds of your users and think before you sell.

Stay tuned for more of our best practices - Next up is Usability Guideline #2 - Communication & Relevance. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to learn more, or visit our blog for more on usability and best practices.

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