3 Proven Techniques for Improving Your Website’s Usability

You’ve poured your time and energy into crafting the perfect website. You’ve designed every page meticulously, picked the perfect typography, and put up with a million second opinions from friends about how it might look as a logo. But you forgot one thing: usability. Chances are you noticed this when nobody showed up on your site for a few days, or even years. Or maybe someone finally visited your site and made that oh-so-indescribable expression when they clicked on something only to find out it wasn’t what they expected.

It’s not enough to make a website that’s visually appealing. It has to be easy to use and easy on the eyes. In this article, I’ll outline some of the most overlooked usability tips and tricks for improving your website’s usability. You can implement these techniques in less than an hour - and it could mean the difference between making your site a success, or watching it fade into obscurity.

DO: Create A Task List That Will Get Things Done

[/caption] Many people neglect to create a task list before redesigning their website. This list should include anything that needs to be done to prepare your website for launch. Without this list, you might find yourself spending time on tasks that aren’t a part of the bigger picture. This is how you could find yourself adding a new template style while forgetting about creating a menu that links to all of your pages.

DON’T: Mindlessly Browse Your Own Website Before Launch

You know what I’m talking about. You never visit your website after it has launched, because it’s “too much hassle” or “I don’t really care what it looks like right now.” The problem with this is that you lose all the energy you had for your project, and you come to view the current state of your site as a final product. But launching a website isn’t the same as designing one. You have to make sure it functions properly by testing it yourself before going live.

DO: Test Your Website With Real Users

It’s not enough to test your websites functionality with your team alone. You must also test it with real users who aren’t bound by secrecy agreements or non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). These are the people who will immediately notice every flaw: usability errors, useless buttons, and confusing navigation. Ideally, these users should be picked through a sample of your target audience. This way you can see whether you’re getting the right message across to your intended audience.

DON’T: Forget About Mobile Users

There are numerous websites out there that have gone out of business because they neglected to test their sites on mobile devices. If your site isn’t responsive or has all sorts of weird layout issues (like giant images in small spaces), then it can quickly become a lot harder for people to navigate. Also, if people can’t easily see the information on your site because of it being broken down into smaller parts, then they won’t be able to find what they are looking for.

DO: Use A Content Management System (CMS)

A content management system is a type of website software that allows you to edit all of your pages from a single location. This means you will never have to do an edit on more than one page at once, which can save countless hours of time in the process. Another great thing about using a CMS is that it saves you money because you then don’t have to take time out of your day to manage multiple websites that have their own set of problems.

DON’T: Make Your Site Inconsistent

One of the worst things you can do is to have a huge variety of fonts scattered around your site. Ideally, you will use a font that is legible, lasts a long time (and comes in an array of colors), and blends well with the overall design. It’s also wise to make sure all of your images are uniformed in size and quality, so that people don’t feel like they are wading through mud looking for relevant information.

DO: Find Out How To Make Your Website Smarter

Some of the most overlooked things about usability are what they will make your website do. You can improve your site’s functionality in many ways - and I’ll outline 10 tips that have been proven to work. These tips include the use of action icons, shortcuts, and other “smarts.” There are countless ways you can take advantage of these little tricks, but it will be up to you to find them out. Use an application such as Zapier or Wapply to help automate repetitive tasks . This way, you can create a machine-like process that takes people straight from A to B.

DON’T: Forget About User Research

User research is crucial to making sure the navigation system on your website is intuitive. It’s like testing the first step to make sure it doesn’t lead you into a concrete wall. In contrast, this isn’t as important for pages that are a part of your site that people don’t visit all that often, such as navigation or contact information. After all, most of us don’t know how to find these pages through our browsing history. Before launching your site, get an idea as to what sites you should be looking at for good examples of how other companies have incorporated these principles. Use SurveyMonkey to make the process of surveying your visitors as simple as possible.

DO: Think About Your Users When It Comes To User Interactions

When testing out different user interactions, it’s important to focus on what your users would find the most interesting about them. For instance, if you have a blog post that uses a gallery of images, then why not add a button for others to see how the images look when they are clicked on? This way they can decide whether or not they want to click through. In this way, you can get more people clicking through and getting to know your brand better.

DON’T: Fall Into A “Design by Committee” Folly

This can turn into a problem when you have a group of people who want to work on the same project, and they start testing out different ideas. This approach often leads to the design getting stretched too thin, resulting in user experience that is jarring for your visitors. To avoid this, either get a dedicated person or use an agency that specializes in UX/UI design. They will be able to help you streamline your website and keep it from conflicting with other projects being worked on by your team.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, a lot of people end up getting left behind because they didn’t spend enough time testing their websites. It’s a process that isn’t considered fun for most developers, but is crucial to making sure your site gets a good first impression. By following these steps, you will be able to improve the overall functionality and usability of your website.