Main principles of usability
Before describing main principles of usability we should clear the meaning of this term and its destination. In most cases usability is understood as the efficiency with which a user can perform required tasks with a product, for example, a website. In human-computer interaction and computer science, usability usually refers to the elegance and clarity with which the interaction with a computer program or a web site is designed. Usability is a qualitative attribute which defines the ease of an interface usage. Usability also means a set of methods serving to interface improvement while it is being projected.
Nowadays usability is highly widespread in Internet-project development and support. Creating a web-site you should ensure that it will be easy in use. A site where a customer gets lost among a plenty of references, huge text blocks and a lot of blinking ads is considered a bad one. Visiting any site a user wants to find information rapidly and without any excessive effort. If the structure of the site template seems too fanciful and complicated and the information search is rather difficult, the user will leave such site after few minutes. So, if you want your site to be popular and frequently attendant, you should not only use nice professional web templates but also know the usability fundamentals. Any custom web designer should know them and for a good web graphic designer this knowledge is essential. Thus, projecting a site you should remember such important usability rules:
- First of all, make it clear who you are and what you do. Customers have to understand the purpose of your business and mark for themselves your advantages.
- Provide easy access to a good search function that will be really of use. Make sure that it is easy to find the important sections. The users should not have to think too much in finding what they want.
- Don't make your pages overfull of text. If you need to place a lot of information, try to divide it in some small blocks or separate them by thematic.
- Organize your web site in such a way that people could easily understand where they are at the moment and how to get to the next page. Make it simple to navigate back to where they have come from.
- Use different colours to mark visited and non-visited references.
- Pick out your business advantages that distinguish you among competitors.
- Use graphical images concerned with site materials and not only for decoration. You may also place the photos of people concerned with your business. Usually people like to know the appearance of a person they deal with. The photos of your goods will also make will stand your business in good stead.
- Don't forget about a short logo that will briefly explain your business affair.
- Make easy the access to your old materials that some times ago were on your main page. Usually consumers read the materials when they have been transferred from the main page to the archives.
- Place a short description of your site in the window heading.
- Don't place the reference to the main page on itself. If you want to make possible the update of a page, make a proper button but not a reference that won't transfer you to another page but to the same. The worse situation is when a click on the reference brings you to the top of the page where you are now.
According to this a perfect web site should be:
- Efficient
- Effective
- Satisfying
- Easy to learn
- Easy to control
- Allow people to reduce, identify & recover from error
- Provide good feedback
- Allow the user control of their experience
So, being a good professional and creating nice web sites, you should be acquainted with the principles of usability. Only in this case you'll be valuated as a specialist and your sites will be popular and often attended.
Author: Anna Bondarchuk
