Common Usability Mistakes To Avoid With Your Website
Usability analysis is essential to create a quality web site
. It is all too easy to become over-familiar with our own site layout to the extent that you don't recognise where your visitors are having trouble. Here are 8 rookie usability errors to avoid.
Populating upper fold with one element
Visitors to your site need to find the page content immediately when the page loads. If you have a large element that sits on all your site pages like an image banner or large booking engine, you need to consider carefully how this is displayed. If users are presented with the same dominant element on every new page they arrive on and the actual unique information is pushed lower down, perhaps even below the fold, this can be very frustrating for users and deter browsing through your pages.
Discreet navigation
The main pages on your site need to be clearly displayed. If important page links are using a small font or are a discreet colour that blends in with the rest of the page design, you are making it harder work than necessary for users to find what they need. Use big visual clues for you main navigational links, like a different font colour, increasing the font size or placing them in an illustrated box.
Emphasising less important links
When you look at your pages, which links are your eyes naturally drawn to? If you are over-familiar with your pages, ask someone else to view them and tell your what they see in order. Do your primary links catch the eye first or are you over-emphasising lesser links? If you have less important navigational links distracting from the main ones, you are delaying people finding what they want longer than you should.
Confusing the content/links with fussy pages
Messy pages is one of the most common mistakes. Webmasters are too keen to throw lots of information onto a page and feel like it all needs to fit above the fold. It is difficult to display lots of information on a page and still keep it tidy and easy to navigate, but it can be done and is worth taking the time to get it right. Consider using tabs for your different content areas, anchor links to subjects lower down the page or place some content onto a different page and link to it. Don't be afraid to spread your information below the fold but make sure the flow of content makes sense so users know what to expect if they continue scrolling down.
Creating extra navigation/clicks
Pages should never be too far from the root of your site. Visitors should only have to click on two to three links maximum to find the information they want. Any more than this, and you are making its very hard work for them. You only need to delay a visitor for a matter of seconds for them to resent your site. If you have hundreds or thousands of pages, make sure the subject areas all interlink and archives of information are easy to navigate. A good internal structure is very important and visitors are more likely to browse if areas of content are grouped together so clicking around keeps them within related material.
Placing primary links in large paragraphs
Links within paragraphs are good for leading interested readers to more relevant content that is off-subject for the current page, but it shouldn't be used for primary navigation. If the target page is thought to be a significant, popular page, the link should be given greater priority and placed within a menu or other main navigational area of the page. Perhaps it warrants it's own button image or banner.
No Breadcrumb
Breadcrumbs are the trail of navigational links usually found at the top left of a page. They are a very useful tool for users to see where the current page sits within the site and the pages they passed through to get there. Breadcrumbs are very common now and users naturally seek them out.
No Search Box
Search fields are becoming increasingly common. It is a very useful additional navigational tool for your site allowing visitors to search for a particular term and then view the returned pages thought relevant. It can save people clicking through your menus which is sometimes laborious within bigger websites, so if your site is several hundred pages in size it is definitely worth adding a search field to your template.
by: Patrick Omari
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