subject: Web Application Developmentusability Guidelines [print this page] When you use a car you use its gear and paddles swiftly without involving your mind much. The same should be true for your web applications; it should be used simply, quickly and intuitively used as any tools in the life. In this article I did try to give some usability guidelines that I feel are essential.
Consistent UI
Whatever you have decided for your interface, keep it constant. That means you have same style for all pages and you cannot apply one style for one page and another style for another page. It has been observed that it takes long enough to establish familiarity with an interface. Try to avoid inconsistency in color scheme, layout and order of elements, and anything else. Try to introduce as many standardized elements as possible. Let me explain it bit more. You cannot decorate buttons elements as it is not an art piece but it is simply an actionable item the user will frequently click on and not think about therefore your buttons should look like buttons and check boxes look like check boxes, and so forth.
Guide Users
During the surfing when user caught on amusement that what action should be taken next this is a big failure for interface developers. You should be provided with a proper guide for users if you want them to proceed on to the next step or want to take upto a goal, then make it clear where to click to progress. In case if one action is more important than the others, have the button area for it prominently displayed.
Make call-to-action obvious
Make the interactive object big and clear. Why hide them if you want users to be click on them. At least make them bigger than the surrounding elements and text so that they stand out.
Give Feedback
When you take an action like click on a button then you should have some kind of feedback like your curser should see engaging mode or shape or color of the button changed. Some visual feedback is must on an action. For instant, there should be loading wheel or loading bar in case of file upload so users can know how much time is left. Dont leave them guessing if their file is uploading, the browser decided to give out, or some other error occurred.
Ask Minimum Info
During registration or any time ask minimum information to the users and save them repeating things frequently.
