usability
Usability is the most important aspect of web development. It's all very well with a nice looking dynamic web site, but if it takes a long time to download or is difficult to navigate, users will give up the visit of another. Users want to find the information they seek – if you do not find it quickly, we will see elsewhere.
Remember who you are the Web site for deployment. Do not sacrifice usability for design. Much of what you consider to be important if it is dependent in terms of ease of use to your audience and purpose of your website. If you think about usability before they commit to a new design project, and in the design in the development stages, it will also look good and be operable. Put your visitors first.
navigation
Navigation is the most important aspect of a website. It helps users find their way, and tells them where they are and where they go within the site. It provides a visual means for the detection of the hierarchy to find the information. Good navigation is often reflected good site structure.
Usually found in these forms:
navigation panel
location indicator device (breadcrumbs)
home button
links
html title
site map
search facility
the 404 (and other error pages)
graphics as navigation and/or links
navigation panel
Set of links on left hand side or top area of page
Best saved as a server side include
Can be text links or graphics
Should take up as little space as possible
Keep in a consistent form across the web site
Same place
If a change of color indicates a different section of the web site – make sure there are other means of indicating the change (see color blindness issues)
location indicator device (breadcrumbs)
Should be added to every page other than the home page
Near the top of the page
Shows the visitor where the page belongs – where they are in relation to the rest of the web site
Should be as concise as possible and follow the navigation structure of the site
Often as a small section of the site map
(e.g.) home > usability as on this page
Each preceding item needs to be a link
The last item should not be a link as it is the current page and provides an visual indication of this
home button
Not necessary on actual home page
A home button / company logo (link to home page) at the very top left
Should make sure there is a textual link to home on all pages for visitors who aren’t familiar with the logo being a link
The location indicator device (see above) provides a textual link to the home page
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links
All textual hyper links should be underlined
The visitor should not have to mouse over, or hover, on a link to realise it is a link – make it obvious
Provide plenty of textual links within the web site to allow the visitor to cross reference information
Try to provide these in stacked lists of links, rather than “hidden” within the text
Links within text can slow down reading flow, but this may be a good thing sometimes by highlighting particular words
Differentiate between internal links (links within the web site) and external links (links to other web sites)
If you are linking within the web site, simply link the appropriate text
If you are linking to an external web site, try to include the full web site address (e.g. http://www.othercompany.com/) in the text
This is so visitors know they are going to a different web site before they click on the link
Don’t make links open in a new window by using target=”_blank”
Visitors can get confused and/or irritated by this
Destroys the back button – a common means of back tracking
When linking to large files, such as .avi or .pdf
Provide a KB size in brackets next to the link so visitors know how large the file is before downloading it
Make sure visitors know when they have been to a link
Change the color from blue to red/purple, or a least make visited links a less saturated color than unvisited links
Back to the top of the HTML title of the HTML header to keep the current page in the browser's title bar displays the top to keep it for those who might bookmark site also see how it affects search engine some useful items
Sitemap is a separate page, a page map shows the hierarchical structure of the website with links to all relevant pages have a prominent link to the page from any page
search facility
Some users choose a search facility before using any other navigation feature
Other users will use a search facility as a last resort
Make sure your site has one
Put the search box in a prominant position on every page
Keep it as simple as possible
Don’t add extra choices for the user – can be confusing/time consuming
Make sure you know/adjust the relevancy of results
There are plenty of companies providing free service for smaller sites
http://www.atomz.com (used on this site) is free for sites less than 500 pages
Allows you to choose how relevant the page title, meta tags, body text etc are.
the 404 (and other error pages)
Use your error pages effectively
If you don’t they will probably leave your web site
Provide a custom error page for each type of error (404 page not found, 403 forbidden etc)
Visitors know they are on your web site
Provide the same site wide navigation as on your other pages
Utilize it for their benefit
Provide a brief description of your web site, why they have got this error and include a site map so they can navigate to something useful quickly
graphics as navigation and/or links
Be careful when using graphic/images as links or navigation
If the border=”0″ on the graphic tag, there may be no obvious way for the visitor to tell it is a link
If they don’t mouseover the graphic, they will not see the cursor change to a hand
Try and provide textual links to the same information as well as the graphic
If aesthetics are less important – keep the border=”1″ on graphics/images as links
See the information on image maps as navigation
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