Practical Usability Guidelines For Your Website (An Evening Of Web Usability - 7th Feb 2012 - Malta)

Justin Mifsud

Practical Usability Guidelines For Your Website

About Me

Personal

Justin Mifsud

Core expertise: Usability, User Experience (UX), User Interface Design, Marketing

Education

Marketing Graduate with the Chartered Institute of Marketing (UK)

BSc (Hons) Computing & Information Systems (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Occupation

Head of Marketing at Holistic Group

Usability Blog – www.usabilitygeek.com

Justin Mifsud - Practical Usability Guidelines for your Website Page 2

What is Web Site Usability?

“The ease with which users learn to use a web

site, how efficient they are when using it, how

easy it is for them to remember how to use it

and how satisfied they are when they use it “

(Nielsen & Loranger, 2006)


Why is Usability Important for My Site?


Users Achieving Goals (Theirs & Company)

Inc. Customer Satisfaction, Retention & Loyalty

Importance inc. In Competitive Environments

83% Avg. Improvement in KPI after Usability Redesign

The Benefits are Obvious ….but

90% of all websites ...or approximately

331million websites have poor

usability (as at December 2011)

97% of top 100 websites from 20

countries did not achieve Single-A

accessibility


Luckily for us, we have Guidelines

Used for Usability Inspection Methods – to

identify usability violations

Based on extensive studies

from various fields

Adherence to usability guidelines effectively

improves website usability


What are the Main Usability Problems?


1. Findability (27%)

2. Information (19%)

3. Search (15%)

4. Page Design (7%)

Total = 68% of all Usability Problems

1. Findability


Information

Architectu

re

Category Names

Navigation

Links

Findability

How easily users can locate the content they are looking for

1. Findability violations


No Info Scent Mysterious Navigation Clutter

Multi-level menus

2. Information


Content Product

Information

Corporate Information

Prices

Information

Text, images and other media presented on your website

2. Information Violations


3. Search


18.2 billion monthly searches using Search Engines in the U.S. alone

Users expect your search interface to look like and

behave like that of major Search Engines!

=

3. Search Usability Guidelines


Search

Textbox & Button

Top Right Hand Corner

Present on All Pages

Not a Search Link

20 Char Textbox

Textbox Must Be Empty

Button Must be Called Search

Search Site but Not Outside

3. Search


BAD

GOOD

4. Page Design


Page Design

Readability

Layout

ScrollingAmateur

Graphics

The User

Interface (UI) of

your Website

4. Page Design

GOOD


BAD

Even the Big Guns Fail!




Logo Positioning



Logo Positioning

No Search?



Logo Positioning

No Search?Menu Disappearing



Logo Positioning


POPUPS !!!Seriously??



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text

Too much importance



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text

Too much importance

Bad convention for links



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text

Too much importance

Bad convention for linksUtility Navigation badly placed



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text

Too much importance


Too Large



Logo Positioning



Low Contrast Text

Too much importance


Too Large F

LASH



1024 x 768 (14% Still use it!)

RESOLUTION



1024 x 768 (14% Still use it!)

RESOLUTION BROWSER RENDERING

I’d Rather Avoid This!



iPhone iPad

DEVICES

Where Do We Go From Here?


Books, Blogs, Journals

Social Networking Sites – Twitter, LinkedIn

Conferences

Malta Usability & User Experience Group


My Blog - UsabilityGeek

Thanks For Your Attendance!


[email protected]

@justinmifsud

http://mt.linkedin.com/in/justinmifsud

http://usabilitygeek.com