Surely more than once you’ve visited a website and have been unable to find what you were looking for. There was too much information, disorganized content, or the links didn’t even work. Whatever made your navigation difficult, that website had a clear problem: it wasn’t ‘usable.’
Web usability determines how easily a user can interact with a website and find what they’re looking for intuitively.
Simple, right?
However, sometimes it’s hard to find websites that meet this essential requirement.
Design should always revolve around the user experience. If your website is difficult to navigate, your visitors will feel frustrated, which will ultimately affect your traffic and, in the long run, the success of your project.
So, what aspects do you need to consider if you want to achieve good web usability?
- Structure and prioritize information: Users need order to find what they’re looking for. Therefore, before you start working, I recommend starting with a simple content tree. This exercise will help you visualize the information much more clearly and organize it coherently. Then, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback from people outside your project: if they can navigate your website without needing help, you’ve done a good job.
- Reduce the number of clicks: While you may have created a coherent path to follow within your website, are you sure it’s the shortest path? The user wants to get to the information they’re interested in as quickly as possible, so don’t add intermediate pages or extra steps that increase the number of times they have to click on your website. Stick to the essentials and eliminate anything that is unnecessary. Similarly, make sure all links work correctly and that the website’s loading time does not exceed 20 seconds. All these obstacles will only frustrate your visitor.
- Have a responsive design: As mentioned in the previous post on The 10 Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid, the vast majority of people browsing the Internet do so via mobile devices or tablets, so a website not adapted to these formats is at a clear disadvantage compared to the rest. A website converted for mobile use cannot maintain the same structure because the screen size and user navigation method are different. Although consistency between designs must be maintained, each device requires its own approach.
- Promote accessibility: Another important aspect to consider is making your website easily usable by all types of users, including those with disabilities. For example, an accessible website will include elements such as subtitles in its videos for people with hearing impairments or ALT descriptions in images for those with reduced vision.