Have you ever tested or analyzed your website usage? If not, then ask yourself if you really know whether your site is useful for your target audience. If don’t know, why not find out? For example, did you know that on average users scroll down 5.9 times as often as they scroll up, meaning that often once page content is scrolled past, it is “lost?”
Also, make sure to check your web analytics: are you curious about those high bounce rates from any of your pages, or very short time-on-page metrics? First, think about your user. Putting the user first is a great strategy to achieve success: happy website users = increased probability of high Google rankings.
Getting Started
The start of a web project—whether it’s completely new or a revamp of an existing site—is a great time to ask yourself questions like:
- How might users access your site—home, office, on-the-go?
- How tech-savvy are your visitors?
- How familiar are users with the subject matter of your website?
The answers to some of these questions can be valuable when making initial design decisions. For example, if the user is likely to be on the road, they might be short on time to find the information they need from your site, or be in a distracting environment and have a slow internet connection—so a simple layout with single purpose would work best.
Also, if you’re providing content for a less technical audience, make sure it’s not too difficult to access content—animation might provide a “wow” factor, but only if your user appreciates it and it’s not too difficult to get to the content.
Simple testing
Testing does not necessarily have to be an expensive process – friends and family can be a great resource. Some pointers:
- Sample size: Just five people can be a large enough number of users to find common problems in your layouts and navigation.
- Choosing your testers: A range of different technical ability can be useful, but be sure to only focus on trends—for instance, if more than 50% of your testers have the same usability issue, it’s likely a real problem—rather than individual issues encountered.
- Testing location: If possible, visit the user in their home and watch how they use the site—observe how he/she normally navigates the web when relaxed and in their natural environment.
- How to test: Based on your site’s goals, define 4 or 5 simple tasks to do on your site, and let the user try to complete the tasks. Ask your testers to speak out loud so you can better understand their experiences and thought processes.
- What to test: Basic prototypes in clickable image or document format (for example, PDF) or HTML can be used to test the basic interactions, without having to build out a full site for testing. This way, you can test out different options for navigation and layouts to see how they perform before implementing them.
- What not to test: You should focus on functionality rather than graphic design elements; viewpoints are often subjective. You would only get useful feedback on design from quantitative testing with large (200+) numbers of users (unless, for example, the colors you use on your site make the content unreadable, which would be good feedback!). One format for getting some useful feedback on the design can be to provide 5-6 descriptive keywords and ask your users to choose the most representative ones. Overall, basic testing is most useful for seeing how your website’s functionality is working—the ease of finding information and common site interactions.
Bonus Tips
Here are a few bonus tips to keep in mind when designing a website that is as user friendly as possible:
- Take care when using layouts that hide/show content: We found when using scripts to expand and collapse long text passages, the user often didn’t realize the extra content was available—effectively “hiding” the JavaScript-rendered content when the user searches within the page (for example, using Control + F).
- Check your language: Headings, link and button text are what catches the user’s eye the most when scanning the page. Avoid using “Learn more…” in link text—users seem averse to clicking on a link which implies they will need to learn something. Instead, just try to use a literal description of what content the user will get behind the link—and make sure link text makes sense and is easy to understand out of context, because that is often how it will be scanned. Be mindful about language and try to make button text descriptive, inviting and interesting.
- Test pages on a slower connection: Try out your pages using different networks (for example, try browsing your website using the wifi at your local coffee shop or a friend’s house), especially if your target users are likely to be viewing your pages from a home connection that’s not as fast as your office network. Tip: use Google’s Page Speed Tool to check performance if you don’t have access to a slower Internet connection).
These website design and test tips should help you optimize your website so you’ll no longer lose visitors and create a great user experience that will benefit your business and positively influence your search engine rankings.
