Download The purpose of your site should be instantly clear to your visitors

Usability
Prepared by:
The NYS Forum for Information
Resource Management
IT Accessibility Committee
Usability
OBJECTIVE: the learner will list three
ways to make a web site easier to use
Usability Tip 1

The purpose of your site should be
instantly clear to your visitors.

Clearly establish on your home page
what you hope to accomplish on your
web site.

Page titles should clearly describe the
content of the page – used in search
engines.
Usability Tip 2

It should be instantly apparent how to
reach the key content of your site.



Highlight the main sections of your site and
make it clear how to reach them.
Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience
states that "users spend most of their time
on other websites."
If it doesn’t work the way people expect,
expect them to leave.
Usability Tip 3

Your site should be easy to navigate



Don’t open new windows – visitors HATE
that.


Navigation should be clear and consistent.
Change the color of visited links
Pirates commandeer ships – new age
pirates commandeer your screen and
desktop
Users know what the back button is for and
how to use it.
Usability Tip 4

Avoid PDF Files for Online Reading



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Because PDFs behave differently than
HTML pages, users hate coming across
them. It breaks the flow of their web
browsing experience.
PDFs are hard to navigate.
PDF is great for printing and for distributing
manuals.
Convert information that needs to be
browsed or read on the screen into real web
pages.
Usability Tip 5

Avoid the wall of text
Walls of text are deadly for the online
experience
 Use bullets, highlights, short
paragraphs, headlines
 Use simple, direct language

• Jakob Nielson calls this “de-fluffed”
language
Usability Tip 6

Make the computer do the work, not your
visitors.

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

SSN fields in one box, not three
Telephone numbers in one box, not three
Accept (518) 555-1212 or 518-555-1212 or
518.555.1212 or 5185551212
Credit card numbers with or without spaces
Usability Tip 7

Avoid Horizontal scrolling

Visitors have been conditioned to
scroll down, but find scrolling across
both unexpected and annoying.
Usability Tip 8

Avoid unexpected e-mail links
If it’s an e-mail link, make it look like
an e-mail link.
 It’s annoying to expect to go to a
page for, say, help, only to discover
that not only is help unavailable, but
you have to write and stuff.

Usability Tip 9

Avoid anything that looks like an ad
Users have learned to ignore banner
advertisements
 They don’t check to see what the
content is – they just ignore it
 They block pop-ups, or kill them off
before they render
 They ignore anything with animation

Usability Tip 10

Allow the visitor to change the font
size
Don’t use tiny fonts

Use relative sizes, not absolute, in
style sheets
Following Up