Web Usability Best Practices: Communication & Relevance

What does your website say to your customers? The premise of the Communication & Relevance guideline is to ensure that the site's messaging and its value proposition are clear, aligned with target users' intent and enhance the site's usability.

As we addressed in our last newsletter, we still see sites and applications break a number of elementary usability principles, so we are going back to the basics for this series to focus on key usability guidelines. In our first entry we explored user control. In this second part of the series, we will explore Communication & Relevance. There are 5 key best practices that compose this guideline, as follows:

Communication & Relevance

1. Ensures the site messaging and value proposition are aligned with target users' objectives

• When a user arrives at your site, does it clearly indicate to them what the site or your company does? Does it make clear to them how they can begin interacting with ease? Is it easy for visitors to determine how your site will align with their needs?
• These are important questions to answer not only with regard to your home page, but also with other pages on your site where many users might enter, particularly deep page visits driven by search engine traffic
• Even if users do not enter the "front door" of your site, they should be able to easily understand what is offered to them on the site and how they can go about accessing features, functionality or content that will meet their needs
• Always consider the potentially different needs for a first time visitor to your site. Often, they require more or different context than a returning visitor. For both consider:
  • Can a visitor achieve a basic understanding of who we are and what we do just by viewing our home page?
  • If a user is dropped deep into our site by a search engine, will they still be able to understand who we are and what we do? Will they be able to determine where they are in the site?
  • Can a user quickly and easily understand how to find the information they are seeking and/or complete their intended task based on the language and terminology you are using both in site messaging and in the navigation menu?
  • Is the terminology used specific to the consumer and the way they think about your company, its products or services? Or is the language and terminology you are using specific to your company and / or industry? Is it clear and concise or potentially confusing to a customer or prospect?

2. Allows users to rely on recognition vs. recall

• While users will learn to use your site and become more efficient as they spend time browsing, the site should always provide the information users need to browse the site, and not assume they will remember how to use the site
• Buttons and links must be labeled clearly and with terminology that is customer-friendly
• Content and functionality deep within the site should be easily accessible and users should never have to think, "How did I find that last time I was here?"
• While your site can be unique in look, feel and design, certain conventions should be followed to provide for an easy user experience, for example:
• Links should be underlined or clearly identified as links throughout the site
• Utility links such account access or store locator should be in the upper right of the page and search should reside in that area as well
• Navigation positioning and functionality should remain consistent throughout the site, i.e., if you begin with a left navigation that expands to display sub-categories as a user clicks on each category, that should be maintained throughout the site and each category should expand to subcategories so users can easily recognize how the site functions and access information easily

3. Content adds value and is relevant (e.g. no promotional writing, enough content to sufficiently inform)

• Content on your site needs to address target users' needs, not just fulfill marketing or promotional needs for your company
• Users are seeking information from your site and should be able to get that information easily without having to intuit what you mean by decoding marketing speak rather than facts and details - Users can easily sniff out marketing "fluff" and do not respond well to it when they are seeking information
• All content on the site should be easy to read - which on the web really translates as easy to scan. Users will not read long paragraphs of text (with some exceptions such as when seeking out scholarly articles, technical papers, etc.). To accomplish this, text should be bulleted when possible and visual treatments, including bolding, italics, and design elements should be used to break up the page and make it is for a user to take in at a glance

4. Limits abbreviations, acronyms, and internal jargon

• It is key that your site should speak to your customer in a way that they can understand
• Again, it is important to think about a first time visitor to your site or a first time customer of your company or even industry - are you employing terms or acronyms that can only be understood by someone with familiarity with your company or industry?
• Have you introduced or defined the terms or acronyms somewhere on the site before utilizing them extensively?
• Can someone only slightly familiar with these terms and acronyms make sense of your site?

5. Upfront messaging of value when involving the exchange of customer information (costs, registration information, etc.)

• Your website is a key opportunity to begin a dialog with your consumers. One of the key benefits of the web as a channel is the opportunity for an exchange of information - marketing does not have to be a one way street
• However, this opportunity must be taken advantage of in such a way that your customers or potential customers do not feel taken advantage of
• The key to facilitating this exchange is to highlight that this is an exchange of information by clearly and succinctly stating the benefits to the customer of providing you with information
• These benefits should be presented in an easy to scan format and offer value to the customer whether it be access to additional content, functionality or specials / offers
• The amount of information you are requesting from your customers should be in line with the value you are offering in exchange. If you want to establish a robust profile on your customers, the process should be gradual and continue to take place as an exchange with clear benefits to both sides
• If the registration you are asking users to complete includes any costs or commitments, these also must be messaged up front in a clear manner - this is a key place to stay away from marketing language that might mask the terms and conditions of completing registration
• Commitments may be as simple as receiving marketing emails from you in the future - this still needs to be clear and, if possible, should always be optional. You will obtain a more useful and engaged email list if you allow users to choose to be part of it rather than forcing them

We will continue our series on best practices - Usability Guideline #3 - Simplicity & Scannability will be next. 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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