How to Design Web Usability and Practice Simplicity
As the power of web-design technology grows, the ability to build amazing things on your website grows with it. With the right tools, you can offer your customers an incredible array of choices and options to customize their experience. Some web designers, such as author Steve Krug, say that's the wrong way to go: What Internet users like best is a simple design that they can use intuitively without thinking about it. If you incorporate simplicity into your designs, it increases the chance that visitors will want to do business there.
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Instructions
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Look at your proposed design and see if there's anything that might confuse your visitors. Krug recommends checking for "unnecessary question marks," prominent features, images or text that will puzzle your visitors and leave them uncertain what they are supposed to do. If they know at once what sort of site they're on, without pondering, they'll be more willing to stay.
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Instruct your design team to avoid making the website complicated to use. The fewer actions visitors have to take to shop, or even to browse, the better they'll like it. Even if your users need to register their names and information at some point, you should put that off as long as possible, so that they can look around your site without disruptions.
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Incorporate a three-step approach. If signing up for your service, checking out or whatever else you propose to do takes no more than three steps, your customers will find it more usable than a drawn-out process. The more usable your site is, the more likely customers are to sign up for your service.
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Minimize the amount of scrolling visitors have to do. If the important links and information are on the initial screen when they arrive, it's easy for them to learn what they need to know and click through to where you want them to go. If they have to scroll down and search for what they want -- particularly if it takes more than three screens of scrolling -- you may lose some of them.
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Keep your text messages simple, rather than bogging down your readers with too much to read. Make sure your text is easy to follow. Font size should be between 10 and 12 points and should stand out clearly against the background.
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Eliminate features that make your site load or work slowly. this is a big negative for most visitors. These can include large graphics files, extremely long pages, background music, pop-ups and plug-ins that require visitors to download software. Visitors who don't have super-fast, state-of-the-art Internet connections can find delays particularly frustrating.
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Remove any clutter that you can still find on your site. Look at every visual detail, link and page and ask if they serve either an aesthetic or a practical purpose. Eliminating clutter doesn't mean your site has to be mostly bare, but bare space is often preferable to distracting, overdone design elements.
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Tips & Warnings
Spritz Web Solutions recommends using no more than two to three primary colors that look good together. The total color impact should fit the tone -- serious, fun-loving or respectable, for instance -- that you want to convey.
References
- "Smashing": 10 Principles of Effective Web Design
- Web Designer Depot: Simplifying Website Design: The 3-Step Approach
- Pepper Virtual Assistant: Web Usability Series: Part 4 -- Show Me Around
- Information Architects: Why Is Simple So Difficult?
- Altered Impressions: Slow-Loading Page Problems
- Noupe: Simplicity in Good Web Design: Advantages and How-To
