how to improve the website usability

[sunil43]

hello all,

i need to improve my website usability.

what steps are neccesary?
what can i do for the same?

any tutorial or help will be highly appriciable.

thanks
Sunil
wap-wml.blogspot.com

[sands]

The following points could be useful:

1. Add a good descriptive heading to each page.
2. Same with the TITLE tag.
3. Create an "About Us" page.
4. Add a search site feature.
5. Add a Sitemap as well.
6. Keep all related info in one place.
7. Make sure all important info can be reached with single clicks if possible.
8. Avoid useless and distracting graphics.
9. Make sure that links text are descriptive.

I am sure the others will have a lot more to add.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by sands

4. Add a search site feature.

Adding a site search feature is not required or even necessary for sites with less that 100 pages. :)

[Webnauts]

And by the way, here is the place you can find everything you need to know making usable web sites: http://www.usability.gov/guidelines/...es_notice.html

[sands]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Adding a site search feature is not required or even necessary for sites with less that 100 pages. :)

You really think so? Don't you think this would depend upon page content? For example text-heavy and lengthy pages with slightly overlapping content? Not recommended design practice but often seen. A site search feature could save time.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by sands

You really think so? Don't you think this would depend upon page content? For example text-heavy and lengthy pages with slightly overlapping content? Not recommended design practice but often seen. A site search feature could save time.

It depends how efficient the search feature is. Don't you think so too? :)

[sands]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

It depends how efficient the search feature is. Don't you think so too? :)

True, merely pointing to the page alone won't do. Selecting the text within the page would be the best type of search if the pages are few but rich in text. This would be easier if the text is in a database. For a site with 100+ pages with sparse text a simpler search feature would be adequate.

[Webnauts]

You might also would like to see an evidence based resource about this issue here: http://usability.gov/pdfs/chapter17.pdf

[francoisA]

Hi sunil43

Some areas I like to focus on when working on usability are:
-Making sure that the website is cross-browser and cross-OS compatible
-Add alt tags to all the images and set their width and height in case the images don't load and your layout depends on them
-Keep the navigation simple
-Use contrast to direct the user's focus of attention
-Use repetitive elements throughout the website to create familiarity such as button/bullet styles
-Never use more than two to three different fonts on your website
-Use styles (font weights, sizes and colors) to make keywords, entity names, action links etc stand out from large areas on text.
-Use HTML/XHTML and keep flash to a minimum
-Use CSS for the layout instead of tables to minimize the website's load time. If you are worried about the user resizing his browser window you can use floating layers (<div>) to create a dynamic layout.
-Make sure that your website is Validated. (www.w3c.org)
-Use a DOCTYPE to make sure that the browsers are interpreting the website with the correct code parsing set.

hope that helps!

Francois Asselin
Webmaster
Share Results
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f.514 967 8321

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