Web Development- Usability Guidelines

By Michael Jenkins, June 2009

Usability is probably the most critical element of successful web development. You can create the most glamorous designs and flashy screens, however if your site is not intuitive and does not allow the user to navigate seamlessly through your site and sales funnel, then you website will most likely not allow the user to do what they came to your site to do.

In this article we will briefly summerise the most important factors of web usability. If you successfully implement these guidelines you will be on your way to success.

Web Development Tip 1 - Explain your site clearly

  • Show the logo in the top left corner. This has become a convention.
  • Make the high priority tasks obvious. Don’t make the user think.
  • Show your positioning statement under or next to you logo.
  • Make your value proposition prominent. You need to educate your user to your differences as soon as they enter your site.

Web Development Tip 2 - Include Information about the company

  • Group about us, investor relations, privacy in the same area of the site. Users expect to see this information grouped if they go searching for it.
  • Show your phone number in a prominent location. Our testing has shown an increase in the conversion rate when a 1300 or 1800 number appears in the header file. This is particularly the case on sign up pages.
  • Have a privacy link on the homepage. Also have privacy links under any input forms that require personal information.
  • Make links scannable. Link dominant searchers will scan links and click on the most interesting link.
  • Link from the information containing word. For example you would not use “For a free web development consultation click here”. This is not scannable. It is better to use “Click her for a free web development consultation. Underlining the result of where they will click is more scannable and is better for usability.
  • Create links in blue and make sure they are underlined. Make visited links purple so visitors know where they have been when they are rescanning a visited page.
  • Navigation needs to be in a highly visible place. Either at the top of the page or on the side of the page.
  • Don’t provide multiple navigation areas for similar links. It confuses the user and doesn’t properly differentiate the categories.
  • If you have a shopping cart, link to it from the home page.
  • Group the areas so relevant topics are grouped together.

Web Development Tip 5 - Content guide lines

  • Weave keywords thought the syntax of your copywriting. Keyword density is an important element of on page SEO or Search Engine Optimisation. Try and keep keyword saturation at 3-5% for the keyword that your are optimising for.
  • Use user focused language. Don’t repeat content or over emphasis points.
  • Avoid using single categories or single item bullet points.
  • Link to other areas of the site, or to other authority sites to expand on points or to support your content.
  • Have an input box in a highly visible part of each page of the site. The top right seems to have become a convention. If you are purely an information site with many categories and you can have a centred search box on major landing pages. Give a link to a separate advanced search page. Always have simple search as the default. If you do link to advanced search page, give some advanced search tips to guide the user.
  • The input field should be at least 25-29 characters long. It affects usability if the user needs to scroll to see what they have typed into the input fields.
  • The simplest way for electronics search is to have no heading and label the search button “search”. However, if you button is go then you can give a heading of search.

Web Development Tip 7 - Tools & Tasks

  • Allow users to access high priority tasks from the home page.
  • The days of creating tools to reproduce browser functionality are over. Users find this irritating and controlling.
  • Only provide relevant tools on your site.