Making your web site visitors lives easier

Why it helps to consider usability

Amongst his various careers Keith spent several years at the HUSAT Research Institute in Loughborough doing research into usability. He's listed some of his pet hates in site design at the beginning of the usability and design section. This short article suggests a few things you can do to make your site better for people to find there way around. This benefits –them- and it helps –you- get your message or product across

Site structure

Some details

Where to go next

The What's New Page gives a quick overview of the hundreds of pages of articles and picture on this site.

This page is part of the Usability section of our Info and Resources feature

Structure

First of all a few questions for you to ask about your site.

Pick a page at random, open it up and ask the following questions

Where am I?
Where can I go?
How did I get here?
And how can I get back where I was?

Is this immediately clear to a visitor? Try to consider it from someone else’s viewpoint. Perhaps they have scripting turned off; perhaps they are using a speaking browser.

OK, lets go to your home page. Is it a bit clearer there? Does your message get across to visitors? Have you decided what it is you want to say to them, or more importantly have you worked out what it is they want to hear from you? Do you really know who your visitors will be?

Making your web site better for people to use requires input at fundamental levels of design. You might query the selection of a random page above, but think of people finding pages via a search engine. A lot of the feel that people will get for your site comes from their ease of finding what they want. Your job should be to help them in that task.

Details

A consistent look and feel helps people get round. It also helps convey the impression that the site was conceived as a whole rather than a thrown together collection of disparate parts. It also helps you maintain the site and add new content.

Simple things, like having contact details available and a good choice of colours for links (and followed links) all make for a better visitor experience. One basic thing that I forgot in some parts of the original Northlight site was the making a link specific to relevant text.

Note the difference between the following.

Click here to visit our usability section or here to visit our main photography section

-and-

We have a usability section and main photography section.

Usability research from UIE does indeed show that the success of a link depends on:

How well the user can predict where the link will lead.
How well the user can differentiate one link from other, nearby links

When you are looking at your site from a usability perspective it is well worth remembering that

You know it too well
You have a particular style of browsing
You are probably not like your typical visitor
You -really- do know it too well

Get other people to check things and do remember to try out different browsers.

One other thing to have a look at is your <404> error page. People do enter wrong URLs and make mistakes. Try and make it helpful for them, almost anything looks better than getting a browser's default 'page not found' error. You could just take them back to the home page, but why not be a little more helpful? The Northlight Images Error page (opens up in a new window) has a different look (no menu bar) to give a quick visual clue that something is amiss, it has a basic site map and contact details, Hopefully it conveys the impression that you care about your visitors problem and want to help.

Where to go

I was sorely tempted to mention some of the atrocious sites I come across in browsing the web, but I'll just suggest a visit to ‘Websites that Suck’ where you can gaze in awe at some of the exhibits. I'm fully aware that designers are sometimes ‘just following orders’ but there really is no need for big Flash based ‘click to enter’ pages.

Learn from your own web browsing. Note what you like and what causes problems. There is a collection of links I've found helpful in the Usability section should be a good starting point.

We have a version of Google's Search engine, optimised for photography related items that may be of use in finding more information...

Keith is always happy to discuss matters raised in his articles. You can contact Keith at the address below.

Other areas of our site that may be of interest...

NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.

Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.

As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.

New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.

Visiting Leicester or wondering where it is? We have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.