usability

Understanding Visitor Intent and Web Conventions

As this blog develops I’m surely going to be tweaking and adjusting various aspects concerning layout / typography / naming schemes / visual hierarchy etc …

Over the last few years I’ve proven my ability to look at a website and recognize “user experience pitfalls” quite easily. On almost any website I visit I’m always thinking of link placement and colors, type spacing, navigation consistency etc…  How easy is the site to use? Am I struggling to find what I’m looking for or is it totally thoughtless?

Steve Krug’s book has been a huge eye-opener on learning web usability & web conventions. Of course, most people read a few pages of his book and think “This is all no brainer stuff. I don’t need to read it.” Mistake! It’s imperative to keep his book close by for constant review. The concepts he addresses are often so simple they’re easy to forget to pay attention to.

It’s often the subtle things in web design that we overlook and Krug’s book does a great job at drawing them back into focus…

Things like:

• Clickable things should LOOK CLICKABLE. Don’t require a user to hover over stuff to see if it’s a link.
• Make navigation obvious.
• Be Trustworthy. Don’t trick readers or mislead them.
• Omit Needless Words - this includes Happy Talk.

With all of this in mind, I’m professing my love for web usability and simultaneously admitting I’m not the God of Usability. That’s where my visitors and google Analytics come in. I’ve surely overlooked some aspects in web usability when I setup this blog.

The question is: What did I miss? and What can be improved?

Tags: web usability