There is no more important task that one must learn before getting traffic, making awesome products, marketing etc, etc. And that is how to achieve better website usability, a websites usability that is top-notch will outweigh by 1000%+ in sales, a website that has poor usability.

Websites are intended to be seen and used by Internet surfers. Not many people realize or understand the extent of just how wide a spectrum the range of users of the Internet are today and continues to grow everyday.

A website’s usability is one of the key determinants of its success in fulfilling its main goal, whether it is made for information dissemination, business or communication, it makes no difference what your website is for or doing, your customers-to-be and visitors will give you no time or chance to persuade them closer to a sale if your site has dismal usability.

Your websites Usability is all about the relationship between a website and its users. Websites should be seen as tools which will allow its users to do their tasks more smartly, faster and help them achieve results with maximum ease.

The issue of usability is very pertinent and is treated with much attention today. There have been moves (including legal ones) that aim to push web development towards usability.

There are many people who are affected with some kind of disability or impairment which hinders them from fully enjoying the different aspects of life including the use of the Internet. Website owners and businesses will do well to remember that these growing groups of web users spend money too, just like the rest of us.

The Internet, with it’s continuous development towards the better, has been and still is a great instrument in providing people, especially those with impairments to be able to have avenues for accessing information, communicating and transacting with ease.

This is why website usability is a much talked about issue, and should be always at the forefront when it comes to setting up sites, so as to be able to receive sales from these groups as well.

Usability is important because it can be the difference between accurately performing a task or not, between enjoying the whole process or being very frustrated. Usability is also important for the developers since it can be one of the key factors in determining the success of a system.

It is also important for businesses which thrive on the Internet because a low level of usability will definitely drive the customers away in bulk masses. Most importantly, for people who have impairments because they are the most vulnerable group in terms of accessing the different avenues that the Internet provides.

Components of Usability

A website’s usability is one of the key determinants of a website’s popularity. A recent survey revealed that the ease of use with regards to websites makes 74% of website visitors want to come back. That is a 74% reason why to make your site usable.

There are different components of usability. These are:

-Efficiency

This refers to how easily the users can perform their tasks after they have had a general feeling for the website.

-Learning curve

Can the structure of the website easily be learned by the users?

-Over-all perception

Is the website pleasant to the eyes and can easily be accessed by people viewing it?

A website that is usable will be able to deliver a lot of benefits not only to the viewers but also to the developers. Here are some of the most important benefits that can be achieved by improving the usability of a website.

-user satisfaction

-productivity and success

-avoidance of long-term costs of development

-improved competitiveness of the website

Now, we move to the ways on how to best tackle the basic concepts that should be kept in mind in developing websites to achieve usability.

1) Give information about the website

Many website developers forget the importance of putting up some information about the website because they assume that people will be able to figure that themselves, Wrong, amongst the billion+ users on the net today, there are many different levels of understanding the web and how it works, including your site, always place easy to find and read, simple information that explains your websites function and duties, this can mean many more sales and customers.

Many people will be giving negative feedback if they don’t get what they want (or what they think they want) from the website. A portion of the homepage can be used to relay this information or a separate section about the site can be added.

2) Provision of a sitemap

Many people are not very familiar on navigating through the different layers of a website and therefore they result to the sitemap to be able to find what they are looking for. Sitemaps provide a skeleton image of the whole site and cramp the pertinent sections into one single page.
Plus search engines do apply better rankings for sites that have a simple and easy to read sitemap.

3) Loading time

If people were to be asked to choose between a good-looking site which takes too much time to load and a basic site which loads quickly, most of the time, the second one will win.Why ?, Because as mentioned earlier people are moving way to fast these days and certainly do not have the tine to waste waiting for a slow site to load. The use of large flash programs, graphics and the inappropriate placing of too much information should be avoided to improve the usability of a website.

4) Quality content and readability

People visit websites to be able to gather information and they will leave immediately if the content they are searching for is either : of poor quality or has poor readability. Make sure that the content within your website is all written well and is structured to be easily read. Always make sure that the information is quality, relevant and most importantly informative.

These are just some of the ways on how a developer can improve the usability of his website. The development of websites by people or marketers in the "know" is pushing forward firmly towards usability and every single website that is not giving due attention to this should take this and keep it in the front of his mind.

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