Usability is essential to the success of any new website, one should never second guess its importance. Website usability is a performance booster and it can bring in more revenue for your online brand.
You can achieve your conversion goals with a user-friendly website, the basic rule is make it easy for site users to access information they need. It is amazing how this one core element will make your site stand out and be miles ahead of the competition.
Mobile Compatibility
It feels like everyone on the planet has a smartphone, and creating a mobile responsive site is a crucial.
Always check how your current website loads on a mobile screen. Its as simple as navigating to your site on a mobile and seeing how it loads. Take it one step further and you can use mobile simulators to see how it appears on different phone devices, sizes and brands.
Navigation
A well-designed site navigation ushers site visitors towards the inner pages of your site, and easily back to the central page without any fuss. The point is you want the navigation to be simple and user-friendly so that your visitors don’t get lost or confused.
Ideally, basic HTML and JavaScript menus are great for navigation as they load consistently on all digital platforms.
Accessibility
Site accessibility opens up your website to a bigger audience, and expands it further to other potential target audiences. Use site heading tags, labels and proper alt text on images. People with disabilities benefit greatly from site accessibility, because you are providing them alternative ways to browse the site’s information. Always think from the perspective of the random user – it could be someone physically impaired or someone with a broken mouse- these people can still see your website and may move around it through a keyboard or through voice recognition commands. But still they hang around to access your site’s content, so make sure the site is flexible to everyone who visits.
Information Architecture
Plan your website carefully, set distinct sections and categories. Present information in a way that it is easy for users to find. This is very important when you have a lot of content on your company’s website. How information is organised and presented is vital for excellent usability. Remember to make room for future content and categories.
Load Times
If a website takes longer to load on your screen, you can expect visitors to exit. But in this day and age, all it takes is a three second lag for visitors to abandon your site and head out the door. Three seconds (Can you believe it?) and that’s already slow by today’s standards.
A fast loading site is a beacon signal to search engines, and if you get your website to work at an optimum speed, you will get a high-ranking advantage over your competitors.
