Websites

The 9 essential rules of usability for a good website
Websites

The 9 essential rules of usability for a good website

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Any professional will tell you. The aesthetic work done on a website is not enough. The web ergonomics is essential to obtain a good website.

Any professional worthy of the name will tell you. The aesthetic work done during the creation of a site is not enough even if its place is huge. It is necessary that your site adapts to your users so that they can use it easily and wish to return to it.

However, satisfying your users is a difficult challenge.

So how can I make sure that users find my site practical and readable? By respecting the main rules of web ergonomics.

What is the ergonomics of a website ?

Every day, you use everyday objects that have been designed “normally” to make your life easier (except for medicine leaflets … and I can see the smiles coming). Ergonomics has for mission to adapt these objects to human beings to make your life easier.

With the development of new technologies, this discipline had to adapt to the web. Thus, when designing a site, it is essential to facilitate the interaction between man and the interface as much for the owner of the site who will administer it as for the users (Internet users) who will consult it.

The success of a website is therefore related to the following three main elements of web ergonomics:

The usefulness of a site: knowing how to make the contents of a site interesting

The first axis that allows us to say that a website optimizes the user experience is its usefulness, i.e. its capacity to help the human activity for which it was designed.

To meet this first condition, it is necessary to determine the expectations and needs of future visitors in their entirety but also in terms of micro-features. Indeed, these are the ones that will trigger the decision making process.

A useful site thus allows to answer a need. Nevertheless, usefulness alone is not enough to say that a site is ergonomically optimized. Once your user enters your site, it is necessary that he stays there and enjoys it: usability.

Usability of the site: knowing how to make a site easy to access and especially easy to use
The ISO 9241 standard defines usability as follows: A product is said to be usable when it can be used with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction

  1. The website must be effective

The user must be able to perform the action for which he/she entered the website in a simple way

  1. The website must be efficient

The user must be able to perform his actions quickly and intuitively with the least amount of errors (or a great ease to correct them).

  1. The website must provide satisfaction

A website must be at the service of its users and not respond to a personal ego. The users must be satisfied once their action is completed and successful.

The web ergonomics must not be neglected in the realization of an internet project. Indeed, by placing the experience of your users at the heart of everything, you increase your chances that they appreciate it, come back more often and talk about it around them.

By taking into account the previous points, investing in such a website will be more profitable because it will allow you to reach your objectives more easily (increase in sales, registrations, visits, etc.)

The graphic design

As they say “if you can combine business with pleasure”. A beautiful site will remain more easily anchored in the memory, if you quickly find what you are looking for … it will be only happiness.

You want to know more about the success of your web project? We invite you to read our article that explains how to prepare the creation of your website.

What should the ergonomics of a website respect ?

The most important advice we can give you is without a doubt to put yourself in the shoes of your visitors when you design your website. It is for them that you create it. With this in mind, it will be easier for you to apply the following rules and propose a site that reassures your visitors and inspires confidence.

1/ A clear, simple and precise home page:

This is the page that will often have the highest traffic. It is therefore essential that visitors immediately want to know more.

Contrary to what you might think, it’s not the beauty of your design, which after all is very subjective, that will push your visitors to action. No, they will not marvel at it. They are looking to perform an action or find information, that’s all.

Your first goal will be to make their lives easier: keep it simple. Of course, all your pages should also respect this rule because your visitors can access your site from any page.

2/ Readable texts:

Reading a text on a computer quickly tires the eyes so it is advisable to avoid text columns that are too wide or too thin, illegible or too exotic fonts, texts on a gray background …

Instead, favor:

  • black text on a white background
  • a standard font size (no microscopic or macroscopic font)
  • a classic font
  • underlining of links only
  • page plans divided into paragraphs with headings, subheadings

3/ No gimmicks:

Avoid as much as possible animations and other useless gadgets on the site. Apart from the fact that they slow down the loading time of the site, they tire the eyes enormously and above all, exasperate the visitors who spend their time having to close them or juggle between them to read the rest of the page.

4/ A fast display:

Internet users are people in a hurry as a rule (and I know what I’m talking about). If you don’t want your visitor to leave as quickly as he entered, reduce the weight of your pages.

5/ A readable page layout:

Each page should have a title and be airy with a nice layout. Use sub-headings, short and concise paragraphs. Allow your visitors to find their way around easily.

6/ Accessible and intuitive menus:

Do not expect your visitors to spend more than 10 seconds trying to understand how your site works. Your menu must be clear and accessible at first glance.

7/ A visual hierarchy of elements:

In order to catch the eye of your visitors, it will be necessary to play on the contrasts of the most important zones of your site. But be careful not to overdo it and risk making them dizzy. A good exercise to check if your contrast is good: slightly blur your page with Photoshop for example. Where do you want to focus your attention?

8/ Access in 3 clicks:

Even if this rule can be nuanced (the important thing is the speed of access to the information sought and the fluidity with which it is accessed), keeping this rule in mind greatly improves navigation. Beyond that, Internet users can assimilate your site to something confusing and impractical.

9/ Optimized access on different media:

At a time when more than half of all browsing is done on a mobile device, your site must offer an optimal experience on each of these media. To do this, the responsive design will automatically vary the display mode of the pages according to the size of the screen.

As you can see, a good website cannot be summarized in a simple visual.
It requires an upstream study of its ergonomics that will allow your visitors to want to enter, to evolve easily and to quickly find the information they are looking for. That’s what you want, right?

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Usability – Why is it so important for a company’s website?
Websites

Usability – Why is it so important for a company’s website?

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A company’s website is usually the only point of contact the company has with someone who is interested in them. As such, businesses depend entirely on their web presence in order to achieve their online goals, whether they are commercial or not.

This scenario means that the user of a company’s website will be able to formulate a judgment about that company based on how they perceive that website. If a company’s website is usable, then it is very likely that a user will achieve their goal by using. This in turn will be an active contribution that will help that company achieve its own goals.

Now, let’s take this successful scenario to the level of 2,100 million Internet users, and we can understand why website usability is essential for any business with a web presence.

Usability – Corporate Goals and Business

A company typically establishes its usability goals through a combination of user profiling (or targeting), analysis of key tasks and overall business objectives. These may be coupled with additional information such as marketing information, competitive analysis, technical support groups, etc. Because of the diversity of these sources, a considerable list of goals can be produced.

The company must then qualitatively and quantitatively refine and prioritize its goals in order to determine its usability goals.

These objectives are the set of high-priority goals that must be implemented for the company to achieve the necessary user performance and criteria satisfaction. The degree to which the company’s website is successful then depends on the balance of its user interface between the company’s usability goals and those of its users. Of course, this can sometimes be a difficult task as these goals can diverge on the usability aspects of the same website.

What makes a company’s website usable?

The answer to this question depends largely on the nature of the site and the company’s objectives. It is generally accepted that websites that offer the user useful and navigable information in a well-structured layout are likely to retain users who access them and also generate more loyal visitors.

However, these generic assumptions are open to debate. For example, the popular, but still unofficial, three-click rule, which aims to guide website content and navigation, states that all information in a website should be accessible in no more than three clicks. Some authors like Zeldman support the reasoning of the three-click rule because they claim that it is based on the same way of thinking used by visitors. Thus, adhering to this rule helps in developing intuitive, logical and well-structured websites.

Despite this, authors such as Nielsen and Loranger claim that in their tests, the user’s ability to locate products in an e-commerce website increased by 600% after changing the design so that it was accessible by 4 clicks instead of 3.

Thus, they concluded that adhering to the three-click rule usually results in obscure and overloaded navigation. Designers try to make everything reachable in three clicks, which sometimes causes more difficulty in choosing clickable links, whereas going through an extra link sometimes gives users a more intuitive navigation.

According to Nielsen and Loranger, the 3 most important characteristics that distinguish a usable website are simplicity, naturalness and ease of use. When usability is implemented in collaboration with good web design features, especially visual appeal, the result is a website that positively affects user behavior and the trust the user has in the company that owns the website.

This trust is also affected by the user’s perceived usability, which is, the user’s perception of the usability of a website before actually using it. Furthermore, this measure has been shown to be highly correlated with the actual usability of the website.

What is the effect of a usable website?

Researchers like Safavi have shown that websites with a user-friendly design and an easy-to-use interface increase user satisfaction. At the other end of the spectrum, researchers like Montero have shown that websites that violate usability conventions confuse users, resulting in lost revenue for the companies that publish these websites.

The research also shows that the importance of usability of a website increases depending on the competition that exists within the environment of that website. Thus, operating a website in a highly competitive environment is more likely to lose potential customers if its usability is poor; this statement being less true for a website that operates in a less competitive environment.

In conclusion, we would like to quote Jakob Nielsen for whom “the user experiences usability first and will pay later”, which means that users are always one click away from leaving your website if they do not find it usable!

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Websites

Web Accessibility and How it Could Benefit your Business

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What is accessibility?

Web accessibility is the adaptation of a Web platform to a person with a visual, auditory, motor or cognitive disability so that they can perceive, understand and interact with Web content. The W3C, responsible for Web standardization, describes international accessibility standards in the WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) good practice guide.

As for content availability, it is the content of your site that is simply available online. The difference is great!

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Visual disability

Of course, there are the blind, who will access the Web through voice synthesis or Braille displays, but there are also other types of limitations, such as color blindness, partial blindness and visual problems associated with aging. This video explains well how an adapted site can help people with a visual impairment.

Hearing disability

Since information on the Web is primarily visual, the hearing impaired are often the main ones left behind. When producing audio content, it is essential to think about sound contrasts or provide subtitles.

Physical disability

fabfebpafbsaobvjdbfhgfbsoWe think of people with complete paralysis, but also of those who suffer from tremors or motor problems. It is, therefore, necessary to provide an alternative means of carrying out tasks for actions requiring a great deal of precision. There are several innovations in this field (I invite you to watch this video to understand how these inventions can change a life).

Cognitive disability

Finally, memory, concentration, and intellectual disabilities are other limitations for which a different form of accessibility must be provided. Simplifying the interface, avoiding distracting elements and reducing text density are all ways of making content accessible to this type of Internet user.

The importance of accessibility

Few suppliers and companies will bother to make a site accessible… by ignorance, lack of interest or only by omission. If public buildings are to be available to people with mobility impairments, websites should also meet this principle. A government site must serve its entire population as equitably as possible.

What are the advantages for your company?

Accessibility can greatly improve the quality of life for many people with disabilities. It can enable them to enjoy greater autonomy or a more active role in the community, regardless of their physical limitations.

As the population ages, a growing proportion of society is finding accessibility useful. Leaving accessibility behind means leaving a continually growing audience behind. On the other hand, most of the improvements suggested by accessibility will benefit other users and your overall marketing. Using a tablet like the ones used for drones tablets can be a good thing and can definitely help your day to day operations! There are more and more drones you can control with iphone these days and the same applies to a whole lot of other electronic devices in 2018!

Accessibility at every stage of the project

Accessibility must be taken into account in all phases of a project: from writing, the definition of terms used and keywords, functional and graphic design, and especially integration.

As Denis Boudreau, former president of Web Accessibility said: “If the responsibility of people with disabilities is to have the means to access the Web, it is the responsibility of content producers to make it accessible.

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Websites

The different disabilities to be taken into account to improve web accessibility

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There are different types of disabilities: visual, auditory, motor or even mental. These different types of disabilities must be taken into account if you want to optimize the web accessibility of your site.

Visual handicap

The visual handicap is to be taken in the broad sense. It concerns people suffering from total blindness, those with poor vision (myopia, presbyopia) or people suffering from color blindness. It is estimated that nearly 10% of the population suffers from mild or very severe vision problems (even when wearing glasses). Hence the importance of taking this handicap into account, for example by making sure that the choice of colors for a product is easy even for color-blind people.

On optimizing websites for people who have difficulty distinguishing colors, we recommend reading this very comprehensive article. The author of this article lists several tools to improve the web accessibility of the site for people with vision problems:

Check My Colours: you fill in a URL of your site, and the tool sends you feedback listing the elements to improve.
Color Oracle: this tool allows to show what a person is having difficulties to differentiate colors sees. You can also use the Chrome plugin ” I Want To See Like The Color Blind.”

WebAIM Contrast Checker, allows you to measure the quality of contrast between two colors of your site.

Hearing disability

According to national data, 13% of the US population suffers from hearing problems (from mild to total deafness). To make your website more accessible to these people, you need to provide subtitles or transcripts of all your multimedia content, and transcripts of all your audio content.

Motor handicap

In the context of web accessibility, motor disability refers, for example, to the inability to use the mouse, lack of responsiveness or any other disability that limits movement. Motor disability is a category that includes a wide variety of disabilities: spinal cord injury, arthritis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease, etc. Many people are affected by some form of motor disability.

The solutions to facilitate the accessibility of your site to this public are multiple, because of the very multiplicity of forms of motor handicap.

Cognitive disability

Cognitive disability is also marked by diversity and can take many forms, from memory problems to concentration difficulties to learning difficulties. This diversity can be reduced to three categories: concentration, memory and comprehension problems (visual, linguistic or mathematical). To facilitate access to your site for people with cognitive disabilities, you must work as much on the design, structure, and content.

Good practices to improve the accessibility of your website.

WCAG 2.0 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0) is a set of recommendations designed to improve the accessibility of websites. WCAG 2.0 has become a standard, even if paradoxically the project has been criticized for its complexity! You will find at this address a summary of all the recommendations and techniques, classified by category.

WCAG 2.0 is built around four pillars: perception (perceivable), usability (operable), comprehensibility (understandable) and compatibility (robust). An accessible site is a site that is easy to perceive (read), use, understand and compatible with current and future technologies.

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Software to improve web accessibility

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The new information and communication technologies have profoundly changed our daily lives. This is also true for people with disabilities, especially the visually and hearing impaired. Computer and electronic tools make it possible to solve certain problems.

This folder aims to gather here the available software and how it works. Do not hesitate to send us your comments.

Free / free tools

On all consumer operating systems there are free and/or free tools. Here is a non-exhaustive list:

free tools
Linux: this free system kernel is often presented in a more global project such as GNU/Linux. The listed tools can often work on other related systems such as FreeBSD or GNU/Hurd.

Collaborative tools

These tools do not operate autonomously but connect several people to provide a service or help. In the age of broadband and mobile, this list should be expanded.

Tools included in the systems

These tools are provided by the operating system editors and are therefore completely dependent on them.

Tools included in the operating systems

Note: Linux/BSD systems do not have embedded tools for accessibility. As is often the case, all the programs available on these systems are interchangeable; and sometimes dependent on the installed office systems (Gnome, KDE,…). See the chapter “Free / Free Tools” above.

Proprietary and paid tools

Proprietary software is often better known to the general public, and generally paid for.

paid tools macintosh

There are many softwares and tools one can use to improve their usage of the world wide web and we usually recommend Clean My Mac 3 for Macintosh users.

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Websites

Web Accessibility – Standards

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A standard is a set of rules issued by an authoritative body in the field that must be followed to be “compatible” with the standard. It must be seen as a guarantee of quality and not as a regulatory constraint.

The W3C (Web Rules Authority) has published several standards to make the Web accessible to as many people as possible (understand “and persons with disabilities”). These rules apply to both websites and web applications. In the open Web, and beyond the classical (X)HTML and CSS, the W3C publishes standards for publishers and web developers to open to the disabled public (motor, sensory, handicapped, mobility impaired, senior,…). It is done so that everyone can consult the websites as easily and quickly as possible. Let’s see how all this is organized.

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Internationally

W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

It is the non-governmental organization responsible for establishing Web technology since 1994. It has its recommendations standardized by ISO.

WAI (Web Accessibility Initiative)

In 1997, the W3C created this working group to draft specifications on the accessibility of the Web and its technologies. It is this group that will develop the standards presented below.

WAI-ARIA (Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Interactive Applications)

ARIA is an extension of the WAI standard, which is officially only in draft form (at the moment we are writing these lines…). It adds semantic and metadata markers to HTML content to make the interface and content more accessible, especially for technical support tools such as screen readers. This extension is particularly useful for HTML 4 (apparent before ARIA) which does not deal with semantics as such.

The WAI specifies that ARIA must be used only if the standard (“HTML”) does not already include semantics management; for example, HTML 5 (in its current draft version) starts to take semantics into account, the ARIA extension should soon be obsolete.
Note that HTML validators (< HTML 5) do not take into account the ARIA extension and will return errors; however, browsers and screen readers handle ARIA well and will prefer reality to theory to develop accessible pages.

WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

This standard, undoubtedly the most important concerning accessibility, is broken down into three levels (increasing accessibility rated from A to AAA – AAA being extremely difficult to reach). The higher you go up in the levels, the stricter and more meticulous the rules, and the more accessible your website is to as many people as possible. Experts agree that the AA level is already sufficient for a large and complex site. Version 2.0 is the current reference.

Four main rules:

Perceptible: any nontextual content (image, video, form element, CAPTCHA…) must then have a textual alternative of precision or description. It is also useful for screen readers who can only interpret text (content and HTML/CSS code). It is also necessary to use shapes and colors to distinguish the material from the shape, the foreground from the background, to play on the contrast of colors and the size of the text. The sounds must also be recorded with a soft background (difference >= 20dB).

Usable: make all user interface and navigation elements accessible to the mouse and keyboard. This is important when using technical support tools.

Understandable: Visitors must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface, therefore readable (the content or operation cannot be beyond their comprehension).

Robust: the content must be made in such a way that it will be presented and accessible in the same way to everyone regardless of the navigation tool used (and its future evolutions).

ATAG (Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines)

This standard for developers describes accessibility rules for web content creation tools. For example, a site creation tool (CMS – Content Management System) must comply with these standards. Let’s note that the rule recommends making the tool accessible but not the content it generates (that’s the job of WCAG); in a perfect world, we would have both…

UAAG (User Agent Accessibility Guidelines):

These are the rules that must be followed by developers of user agents (see paragraph on “User Agents” below), i. e. the software used to access web content (classically a browser, but not only).

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Website Accessibility Around the world

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the world wide web

In the United States

The 1973 Rehabilitation Act, and especially the 19908 amendment called “Section 508”, imposes accessibility of computer devices for persons with disabilities on the federal government. The amendment does not specify the technical details for accessibility but in practice providers refer to the WCAG.

More information: http://www.section508.gov/

In Quebec

The Quebec government – through the Treasury Board Secretariat – has put in place regulations that, like France, have required institutional sites to be accessible since 2011. SGQRI 008 (Quebec Governmental Standards on Information Resources) are based on those of WCAG 2.0 and are more specific to be less subject to interpretation.

More information: http://www.tresor.gouv.qc.ca/ressources-informationnelles/standards-sur-laccessibilite-du-web and Commented Version of the Web Site Accessibility Standard (SGQRI 008-01) (PDF)

In Ontario

This English-speaking province of Canada has had a local regulation since 2005 called the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) with the goal of full accessibility by 2025. It defines four sections for accessibility, one of which concerns websites (“Information and communications”). The regulations, last updated in April 2016, are based on WCAG 2.0.

Private companies with at least 50 employees are covered by the regulations, as are public bodies.
Learn more: About the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act and the legislation. See also AODA.

In Australia

The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 and its additions in version 4 of 2010, specify (among other things) the accessibility obligations of websites for disabled people, referring to WCAG 2.0. These documents are the work of the Australian Human Rights Commission.

Learn more about Web Accessibility in Australia.

In the European Union

Euracert/UWEM (Unified Web Evaluation Methodology)

It is the European quality label for accessible websites, launched in 2003. It brings together international recommendations (priorities 1 and 2 of WCAG 1.0), an evaluation methodology (UWEM), and a compliance monitoring process (CEN Workshop Agreement). Tables of correspondence exist between the European Union certificate and the regulations of member countries (France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain,…). Version 1 of UWEM describes a methodology for assessing compliance with WCAG recommendations. The next version of UWEM will take into account the transition from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0.

More information: http://www.euracert.org/fr/

In France

Established by the DPMA (Direction du Personnel, de la Modernisation et de l’Administration, attached to the Ministry of Economy and Finance), the RGAA is a set of rules that has been setting the framework for the accessibility of online public communication services since 2009. It is obviously based on WCAG 2.0 and is currently in version 2.2.1. A complete update to version 3 is being prepared.

More information: http://references.modernisation.gouv.fr/rgaa-accessibilite

The French association BrailleNet – which participated in the drafting of the RGAA – publishes its repository called AccessiWeb (published in version 2.2 in October 2012) and distributed on the AccessiWeb site. It starts from the WCAG and being its description by asking 2 questions per criterion: is the criterion present, and if so, is it relevant? It is interesting to note that the RGAA was co-established by members of this association. The association also provides “Expert AccessiWeb and Evaluation” training courses.

In Luxembourg

The Renow repository set up by the Luxembourg government has applied since 2008 to government websites.

More information: http://www.renow.public.lu/fr/index.html

In Spain

Technosite is an organization linked to ONCE (Spanish Foundation for the visually impaired) and promoting the accessible Web, according to the rules of WCAG 1.0.

Learn more: http://www.technosite.es/

In the United Kingdom

The Equality Act 2010 explains why and how sites should be accessible, where possible.

In Ireland

The Disability Act 2005 enacts recommendations for accessibility of government sites, as far as possible, focusing on visually impaired audiences.

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The Essentials of Enhancing Website Usability
Websites

The Essentials of Enhancing Website Usability

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Most upcoming web designers have a desire to please either their clients or viewers of their websites. It’s always difficult to please others, and web design is undoubtedly no exception. Below are our top three tips on how to enhance your website usability and keep your client—or perhaps just the general public—happy with your web design.

1. Simplicity

Let’s be honest here. If someone is hiring you to create a website for them, it’s likely that they don’t have the ability to do it by themselves. Likewise, most members of the general public who may be viewing your website probably aren’t particularly tech-savvy. Because of this, it is highly important that you keep the website simple to use and maintain, ensuring that no one prematurely leaves it due to frustration.

2. Create a Mobile Version

mobile design and responsiveIn this day and age, most of us are glued to our phones for a high percentage of the day. Because of how easy it is to research with constant access to the internet, it’s possible that your viewers are coming to your website from a smartphone. To accommodate for this, you should have a mobile version of your website up and running at all times. Often when using our phones, websites can get distorted, making them impossible to use. This makes a mobile version essential for any website that wants to be successful. Follow the example of a successful commercial drone company Amateurs de Drones Facebook to know more!

3. Identify Your Audience

The most important part of designing a website is to keep your target audience in mind and cater to it. Your website should be personalised to fit your audience. Are you thinking that mostly those aged 13-17 will be viewing your site? Adding bright colours and graphics can be helpful to keep them engaged, as long as you don’t overdo it. Does your website seem like something those aged fifty and up will search? Consider using a larger font size and clear layout.

Considering your audience is essential to building a successful website.

While one can never be certain what kind of website layout will be a hit, these tips are the essentials that are sure to make any website more successful.

Visit this Tumblr Account to know more.

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Tips For Better Website Usability
Websites

Tips For Better Website Usability

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Usability for your website is a year-round, everyday campaign – because your customers visit every day. Here are some tips to improve usability:

1. Usability is about your site’s Users – this means the customers you hope to convert.

Ergo, finding out more about what your Users want is a good place to start.

The tools you can make use of to determine the objectives of your Users may be one of Google’s tools:

* Google’s Webmaster tools will help you to define the keywords that potential converts are typing into the search bar to reach your site.
* Google Analytics will help you to get some insight on what your visitors are typing into the search bar onsite.
* If you can make use of a survey tool, you can post a poll on your site asking Users if they have found the answers they needed on your site.

2. This tip continues the theme of Point 1., so it’s about knowing your Users.

user experience on GoogleTo this end creating Profiles of all your more than 1-time visitors can give you a greater understanding of who your users are: this means their age, gender, interests, and their response to your website.

3. Usability Tests that can be taken quickly onsite also produce a lot of useful feedback.

If you create a very brief questionnaire, you may discover in five questions or less whether your site is easy and intuitive to navigate. For example, you can ask Users how they would improve the website of they had the chance.

4. The design and layout of the page are super-important.

Of course, this is probably obvious to you already, but to reiterate: the colours, the images, the banners, the sidebar, the product information, the links and the surveys should all fit onto the page clearly and cleanly. Even space is important. A web page must be easy to navigate, and it must be easy to take action, or for example, take a survey, fill out a profile or add feedback. The rule here is design the web page so it easy on the eye.

5. As most websites are becoming more interactive, especially touchscreen and mobile devices, it’s crucial that Users have a positive response to your site.

Besides finding what they wanted on your site, it’s a good thing if your visitors feel happy, pleased or even excited in response to visiting the site.
Tools such as Feedback Army can assist the Webmaster in requesting feedback and in posting questions to Website Reviewers. This low-cost tool supplies good-quality responses.

 

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The Importance of Website Accessibility
Websites

The Importance of Website Accessibility

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For many people in the world, the internet plays a vital role in our day-to-day lives. For the impaired, it may seem daunting to create a website that caters to their needs.

Google has already set forth their rules for website owners in that they instruct website owners only to create websites that are useful and interesting to readers. They have made it a point to ensure that the end user is kept in mind in not only the content creation but also usability of the website itself.

Gone are the days when website owners can create websites for the sheer purpose of getting a lot of traffic. Now, in the design phase of website creation, business owners should consider the statistics in their demographics, so they do not exclude those visitors who suffer from visual impairment to any degree.

The National Federation of the Blind uses a broader scope when referring to those who suffer from visual impairment. Being blind is no longer considered the inability to see at all, as the organization documents statistics of those in the United States with some degree of impairment.

In 2013, the organization counted over seven million adults who reported being living with visual impairment. Website accessibility is the key to fostering reader engagement and usability among the entire nation – not excluding anyone concerning their level of impairment.

It makes great business sense to create different methods of content delivery when handling visually impaired visitors. Using a large font may aid those who are unable to read smaller text while color coding action buttons might help those who are color blind. Some companies offer screen readers that tell the visitor everything that is on the website visited.

A good example is a website called What Camping Tent that manage to find a good balance between usability for regular visitors as well as for impaired people. They are following the web best practices by keeping content really concise, with the use of headers to facilitate skimming and quick reading. They also always use fonts that are 16 px and more to make sure content can be easily read on mobiles and third party devices.

Mark Jonson, the owner of the website and camping blogger told us that having a disable child at home, this was just a no-brainer for him as a wish to improve the use of the world wide web for impaired people.

Websites these days cannot afford to lose out on over seven million visitors, so it only makes sense to take website accessibility into mind in the planning stages of your business. Since there aren’t many websites who cater to those with disabilities, the market demands sites to create content for usability by impaired individuals. In doing so, you establish authority in your niche and give the end user what they want – and that is web accessibility without the hassle.

More on the topic with website accessibility expert David Berman:

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Website Usability Is A Key Factor
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Website Usability Is A Key Factor

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How many times have you logged onto a website that looks great, yet it fails to function very well, which becomes a definite liability? You see a picture or a link that looks like it could be something that you would like to know more about, but when you click it, it goes to something that is entirely unrelated.

For the most part, webmasters have moved on from the flash at the front, or the endless videos that take up so much of the ram from your computer, that you never seem to get off of the home page.

A website must have “usability” or it is no better than a postcard that gives you a nice picture, but it is just another one-dimensional graphic.

A website should inform, be an important resource that is going to give relevant information. After all, isn’t that what I was trying to get when I clicked on the search engine button?

Still, there are too many websites that still just don’t get it. There are too many website builders who still think that it is cool to have endless slideshows, byte eating graphics, and memory hogging videos, all to the detriment of viewers who want to get to the meat of the issue, and quickly at that!

disabled student browsing the webWebmasters need to get back to getting their websites functional first, and then add a few bells and whistles, but only a few. The site needs to be organized, and it needs to give very clear instructions along the way as to where everything is to be found. And once someone clicks on a link or a picture, the item that is being searched for had better be at that location when you get there.

The site needs to be clearly organized, to the point that things are pretty obvious as to how the next step is going to be accomplished. An organized website will just flow as if a viewer can anticipate the next move. And that is how it should be, as different groups of information are organized into their categories, and contain relevant information about that group and its subcategories.

A person visiting a well-organized website should come away with a sense of achievement that makes him or her feel like they spent valuable time in the effort. It does them no good to have wasted time having to put up with time-wasting website glamour that does nothing to bring to a conclusion about what they are searching.

If a person cannot learn more about the subject which they seek when they get to a website, then they will obviously feel less enhanced to want even to business with the proprietor of the site.

On the other hand, if the information is presented in a logical order, with good explanations accompanying the material, then there is a good possibility that the individual will want to pursue further the matter.

Making people feel at home, with an organized approach is the best way to keep people on the site and searching.

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Coming Up With a Good Website Design
Websites

Coming Up With a Good Website Design

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The website is the face of your business or company and it needs to reflect what you offer. Taking shortcuts may as well mean you will also do the same to the product or services.

If users feel that your website is interactive and adds value to their lives, they will stick around. However, if your site adds little or no value or makes them feel undermined or stupid, many won’t hesitate to run to the hills. In fact, they will lose faith, trust and respect for your website sooner rather than later.

Print Design or Web Design?

Unlike a brochure where it is easy to flip the pages, in a website, this activity can be done in a lot more ways. How best to click the links is dependent on the web designer.

Graphic design for websites and print may appear similar. However, website graphic design is more industrial or product-oriented than print design. A site can be quite attractive, but using it may prove to be a major challenge. Another web page may be quite blunt but very user-friendly.

To survive in the eCommerce market, the website needs to be highly functional and user-friendly. If not, it will become irrelevant within a short time. It is critical to focus on functionality and usability right from the development stage as this accords you the following benefits:
user ability to navigate through your site is essential-Boosts user satisfaction that leads to improved brand loyalty as well as trust
-Better market penetration and coverage
-Improved productivity, sales and also profitability
-Lowers the long-term cost of developments such as correcting errors
-Reduces the cost of support as well as training
-Improves marketing and advertising (social media, SEO, word-of-mouth, the internet)
-Makes the business more competitive courtesy of a bigger customer base

The website and its performance need to be evaluated from time to time. Rather than sacrificing or compromising usability for project capacity, it is better to uphold usability and lower the ability of the project.

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Why web designers need to beef up their SEO skills!
Websites

Why web designers need to beef up their SEO skills!

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Website design experts note that web design & SEO sometimes end up in a Chicken and Egg situation for many business owners. You find a situation where having a great looking website is going to compromise the optimisation function of the site, and great Search Engine Optimization practices will compromise the look of the website. Some people may think you need to choose one over the other, but the big question that would result would be, of what use will a beautiful website that no one finds be to you? And if you go with the other option, what use is a website that people find but cannot bear to look at and that is not user-friendly?

UX Web Design with Search Engine Optimisation in Mind

user experience website designsThe solution to that is to take note of the relationship between the two, they need to coexist, they need to work as a team and a website needs to be SEO web designed. This means the website is designed to look good but is also designed with the best SEO functionality incorporated into that. It is no longer possible to have a website designed first and then bring on a team of SEO experts to try and optimize it. The plan for design and optimization should be prepared at the same time.

It is best to look at it this way while you may have two teams working on the website, and the end consumer is the same so whatever they are doing should be focused on satisfying that consumer, who is the visitor to the website.

SEO and Webpage Design work to:

1- Attract the attention of visitors to the site

2- Give them a reason to remain on your site

3- Make it pleasant for the visitor to use the site

4- Make it easy to find related pages

It is, therefore, important for these functions to be carried out by teams that communicate to ensure that the ultimate goal is achieved. SEO and Website Design, therefore, go together like a horse and his carriage. This is going to be increasingly important with the rise of the semantic web.

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6 incredible usability testing hacks
Websites

6 incredible usability testing hacks

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Here is a great demonstration of web site usability testing:

Retailers must provide the best user experience possible to their visitors. Eye tracking technology is a great technology to improve website usability. Provides the sellers with an incredible amount of data to better optimise their websites and shopping cart systems.

Interact better!

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The Increasing Need for Website Usability
Websites

The Increasing Need for Website Usability

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Website usability is the use of the website with ease. The major goal of the website usability is the way information is presented and choices of words in it. It also involves proper placement of items in specific areas and ensuring that the content can perform properly on different devices and web browsers.

Availability

It is worthless if people try to access your website, and it doesn’t work.
It is important to follow the following basics of availability and accessibility
Principles of website usability
– Server uptime
Invest a good time in hosting to avoid errors when your users are trying to access your website.
– Broken links
Ensure you don’t have dead links in your site.
– Mobile responsiveness

Make your site ease to be accessed with different devices’ screens.

Clarity

The user will want to use a very clear website. When you consume your users with unclear information, they will move away from your site. Users visit specific site when they have a goal they want to achieve. It is your task to help them.

A clear website can be done through;

social media helps with credibility– Simplicity
Your site should very simple and precise. Avoid disrupting them with unnecessary information.
– Familiarity
Just use familiar words. Using words that already know is not shame. You can visit other peoples sites and grasp important ideas as long as you plagiarize the work.
– Consistency
Crate consistent experience on your website that will keep your users’ mind at peace.
– Guidance
Give your visitors a helping hand. Navigate them through your site. Give them an indication of their success and failure.
– Direct feedback
Giving feedback is very important in any interaction. Make you give feedback to visitor whenever they visit your account.
– Provide good information

It is good to understand your visitors’ understanding and how they would want you to structure the site’s content.

Credibility

It is very important that you have a trusted website. Give a clear page of “ About us” and provide a contact.

Web accessibility is the practices of doing away with barriers that hinder the users’ interaction with the website. Well designed and developed websites give all users access to information and its functionality.

Do you have a website?

They are a number of reasons as to why you really need a website. They following are some of the reasons;

website usability can impact search engine rankingsa) Website works 24/7

A good number of people prefer surfing during the night when most businesses are closed. A website will keep marketing your business even in your absence.

b) Building of customers image and confidence

With the help of a professional website, you impression to your customers will gradually develop. Your website will give them a detailed portfolio of services or products your business will be offering.

c) Websites are global

More 200 million people can easily see your business with the aid of a website, you can move your business continent to continent.

d) Your business competitors have websites too

Your competitors will have a greater chance of winning more customers if they have websites, and you don’t. Potential customers will frequently be visiting their business premise and avoiding yours because they will be familiar with the products they will have seen in their website.

Good usability will call for a clear, availability, credibility, and relevance to the users.

Want to get paid when to test your website content?

You can get good money by testing your website content. The website tester will help to detect errors in the content. You can get paid when you test your website by the use of a webcam, microphone and screen recorder.

Here are a few website usability tips for our readers:

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Welcome to the New Usability Exchange Website
Websites

Welcome to the New Usability Exchange Website

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Today we are proud to introduce the new version of the Usability Exchange website. We had to improve our website infrastructure for our users and decided a few month ago to switch to WordPress.

Do you have a website?

  • Want to test your website with disabled end users but don’t know where to start?
  • Do you know what disabled end users actually think of your site?
  • Would you like to try out your web content with a range of different end users?

Are you a disabled end user?

  • Frustrated by the inaccessibility of websites?
  • Want to give your feedback to organisations on how to improve their website accessibility?
  • Want to earn money by testing website content?

The Usability Exchange has the answer!

By connecting content providers directly with disabled end users we provide an environment in which accessibility and usability issues can be resolved quickly and easily.

  • Learn more >>
  • Register now for FREE!

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