Download Web_Usability_1

Contents
• Define Web Usability and Why
• Benefits of Usability
• Guiding Principles
• Web Standards, Accessibility and
Usability connections
• Resources
Define Web Usability
Make sure a website works well and
a person of an average (or lower)
ability and experience can use it.
….Why is it important
• The first law of e-commerce is that if
users cannot find the product, they
cannot buy it either.
• For intranets, usability is a matter of
employee productivity. Time users waste
being lost on your intranet or pondering
difficult instructions is money you waste
by paying them to be at work without
getting work done.
Why should we care for
usability, for example….say in
an University?
• Because unlike commercial websites, you
cannot switch university websites if you
cannot find specific information.
• This principle is the same regarding
intranets.
Benefits of usability
• Increased productivity (for the user)
• Decreased training and support costs
• Increased enrollment (sales and
revenues)
• Reduced development time and costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Increased customer satisfaction
Guiding Principles:
First Law of Usability
“Don’t make me think!”
• As much as possible, when you look at a
webpage, It should be self evident. Obvious. Self
Explanatory.
• If the user has to extend or exert extra effort to
complete a task, then you can still refine your
efforts to make the task easier
Which is a button?
They are all buttons. But
experience tells us that the
one which is bevelled is and
will always be a button.
This is the power of
conventions, similarly, a
word with an underline will
always look like a hyperlink
to many users.
How do we read pages?
• We don’t read them, we scan them.
How designers think
readers read web
pages
How users really use
the web
- We look for anything
that is interesting, or
vaguely resembles
what we are looking
for
Test for good navigation
• Site ID (site logo and tagline)
• Page name
• Sections and sub-sections (global
navigation
• Local navigation
• “You are here” indicators
(breadcrumbs)
• Search
Usability Testing
• Usability testing is an assessment tool used by
human factors practitioners to perform an
objective evaluation of a product or software
interface
• Participants perform typical tasks with a
software system or website while “thinking
aloud”
• Can users perform tasks easily?
• Where can the website design be improved?
• What areas of the website work well?
Do a Usability Test
• Make it simple that you do enough
of it. Just do it.
• Testing one user is 100% better
than testing none.
Web Accessibility
• practice of making Web pages on
the Internet accessible to all users,
especially those with disabilities.
• You cannot use something if you do
not have access to it.
• Make your site accessible by
following the web standards by w3c
- http://www.w3.org/
Accessibility Techniques
•
•
•
•
•
•
Alt tags (image description)
Descriptive links
Long description (long desc)
Access keys (keyboard shortcuts)
Accessibility statement
Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
• An accessible website is automatically a
usable website
Web Standards
• They are actually recommendations
and specifications by W3C to lead
the World Wide Web to its full
potential by developing protocols
and guidelines that ensure longterm growth for the Web
Resources
• Usability
– Morae, an all digital usability testing software
or Camtasia Studio – Techsmith.com
– The Usability Professionals' Association
http://www.upassoc.org/
– Don’t make me think - Steve Krug
– http://csszengarden.com/
– http://www.sitepoint.com/
– http://alistapart.com/
Raghavender Reddy Budamala