How do your clients view your website, do they find the information they are looking for? Do they become frustrated and just leave?

I went on-line today to view the status of my 2006 taxes and was instantly irritated by the poor usability on the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) site. I was told how easy it was by the CRA agent I spoke to when I filed my taxes, but I discovered fairly quickly that if I didn’t read everything on the page I wasn’t going anywhere in the site. Since I didn’t have time for that I quickly left the site and called an agent. Sometimes companies haven’t budgeted for usability testing and rely on our feedback to improve their sites. This is exactly what the CRA site does, so unless people like me let them know what I had problems with they will never know.

Going through this process this morning reminded me of a great book on Website Usability, Steve Krug’s Don’t Make me Think. This is a quick, easy read and can help you improve the usability of your site so you don’t lose clients or customers. This book isn’t just for developers and designers, it is for anyone who has a website or is thinking of building a website. Steve Kung uses humour to open your mind on how great usability can be achieved and he does it without overwhelming you with a bunch of technical terms you’ve never heard of.

Why is usability important?

Usability is about user experience, if someone doesn’t have a good user experience with your site, it is likely they won’t come back.

Good Usability = positive user experience + customer satisfaction + positive PR

You can also look at it this way:

Good Usability = Improved ROI and is really just good practice.

Still need convincing?

Usability Expert Jakob Nielsen puts it bluntly, “On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a web site is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave.

If users get lost on a web site, they leave. If a web site’s information is hard to read or doesn’t answer users’ key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here?

There’s no such thing as a user reading a web site manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface.

There are plenty of other web sites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty.”

You can check out Steve Krug’s book at http://www.sensible.com.

Your company has decided it needs a new website. You’ve found a team you can trust and they have all the right qualifications. You’ve viewed examples of their work and maybe even talked to some of their clients. Now it’s time to get down to business. Building websites can sometimes be overwhelming, especially at the beginning when there seems to be so much to do. Here are a few simple things to consider that will help the project run more smoothly.

Know the process

Since building your company’s site is not something you do every day, you might not know where to begin. You are left in the trust of the web professionals you hired, because after all, this is what they do. Have they laid out the process for you? Do you understand it? Are there going to be site navigation mockups and wireframes?
What format will the mockups be in? Understanding the overall process will not only help you know what you’re getting into, but should help ease some of the uncertainty you may be feeling.

Define the timeline and your role in it

You should work with your team to determine a feasible timeline and what your role as well as theirs is going to be in it. How involved should you be? How involved do you want to be? Can you get the content to them in time? Are you going to be holding up the process? It’s important for you and the team to stay as close to the timeline as possible. If you can’t get them the content or make decisions according to the timeline the project could lose momentum. Then it ends up costing you money for the time it takes the team to become familiar
with the project again.

What are your likes and dislikes?

If you have specific ideas about the design features of your site – fonts, colors, images – let them know. If you’d rather they come up with all the ideas for the ‘look and feel’ of the site then let them, but discuss this before the mockups begin. Try surfing the web and find examples of sites you really like and explain to them why. Also, give examples of sites you really dislike so they can avoid repeating those same design styles. The more the team knows the better your site will be.

Keep an open mind

For the first round of mockups the team may come up with something totally surprising
to you. Let them explain their concepts and let it sit with you for a while before you make a decision. Then come back to your team and discuss revisions and tailoring the look to what you would like. Open collaboration on both sides will make the final result so much better so be honest with your criticism, a good designer can handle it.

Understand and consider the technical issues

When designing your site try to determine who your audience is and what browsers they’re likely using. Will your site have fast downloads and will it be database driven? Are you are planning on maintaining the site yourself, if so do you want a content management system? Is your site being coded keeping search engine optimization in mind? If those last few sentences went right over your head that’s ok, your design team is there to help you understand them. Be sure to discuss these technical issues before the design process begins as it
may impact the design.

It is important to have clear communication with your design team as great things can happen when you stay in sync.