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Website Usability
Website Usability is not a technical term or a piece of jargon. It describes something which is common sense. It applies to all websites, large or small. If your site is to be a success, then you must understand the basics. Register here for a quick Usability Check.
Make It Easy For Me - if you were to try and summarise website usability, then 'make it easy for me' could be the phrase to keep in mind. If someone lands on your site and they cannot immediately find what they are looking for, they will disappear within seconds.
 

What to Avoid - here are a few of the obvious:

  • Visual Clutter - if the home or landing page is cluttered and it is not immediately obvious where to go for the information, then the user will be gone, hoping to find the information somewhere else. This is especially true for the casual surfer or researcher who might have found your site from a search engine. The user that has been directed to your site for a specific reason may be more patient.
  • Less is Better - Steve Krug famously states "Get rid of half the words on each page, and then get rid of half of what's left". Good advice.
  • Navigation Confusion - this might seem obvious, but there are some good rules to follow when designing a navigation system.
  • Hard to Read Fonts/Too Small Text - stick to the well tried fonts and do not use a font size which is hard to read, even by the strongest eyes.
 
Design Your Pages in the Knowledge that People Will Only Scan Them - you will know from your own experience that people scan pages at high speed. Their brains will only pick-out a very small part of the page or text. Make sure that they can clearly see the item that their brain is looking for. The design of your home page is very important - read some of our important pointers.
 
Plan Your Pages First - draft a plan of your page before you start to create it. Modern web authoring software is so powerful that it is easy just to get started, but this can quickly lead to poor layout and ill thought-out navigation.
 
Learn From Other People's Mistakes - carefully examine the best examples of good design. Just because your ecommerce site is tiny it does not mean that you shouldn't study the methods of the top performers. Everyone has their favourite websites. Go back and have a good look at the ones that your most familiar with and try to decide why you favour them as opposed to their competitors. Of course, it may be nothing to do with good design! It may be that you have just become familiar with them and can find everything that you want.
 
Provide a Search Tool - if your site is large and you know that people will be looking for specific items (e.g. products on an ecommerce site), then provide a simple and well sited search box. Often users will just go to the search box and hope to go straight to the product they need rather than browse through product groups and list of other similar items.
 
Make Clickable Links Obvious - too many sites, in the interests of fancy design, remove the obvious link signposts - e.g. blue and underlined. Of course the links don't have to be blue but make sure that you are consistent throughout your site. If you have to dispense with the underline convention, then use something else to indicate the area to be clicked - e.g. an arrow graphic pointing towards the text to be clicked, or the word GO next to the search box.
 
 

Let Us Help You - if your existing site is not performing, it may well be to do with usability. We can look at your site and carry out a Usability Check and send you a written report. This service is restricted to UK based sites.

To receive this help you must first compete a site usability request form. We will then quickly view your site and email you an estimate of cost, which starts at £50.00 and is unlikely to exceed £150.00. On receipt of your payment we will carry-out the site usability check and email you the results, all within 7 days of receiving your payment (unless this timescale has to be extended for any reason which we will inform you about).

Click here to go to the registration form

 
Usability Check Registration Form - Please be aware that Software Options will never make your details available to any third party, either through sale or lease of our lists.
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Software Options and the Internet

Software Options are developing an Internet Marketing division which can provide the following key services:

  • Website design
  • Website usability advice
  • E-commerce
  • Database backed websites
  • Usage tracking
  • Webmarketing consultancy
  • Email management
  • List management
  • Developing effective email marketing campaigns
Registering Your Interest

If you would like to be kept fully informed about our webmarketing services, then please register your name and email address below. Subscribing will not result in more spam! We guarantee it!

Please be aware that Software Options will never make your details available to any third party, either through sale or lease of our lists.
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