I have talked about this subject in a previous blog but as it really is essential to have your website meeting most of the website usability guidelines I am going to talk about it some more. 

To recap, website usability is an important aspect of website design and focuses on ensuring you keep your visitors on your website so they purchase, send an enquiry, subscribe to your newsletter, comment on your blog and so on.

Every day I see websites that miss even the most basic usability premises and that means they are missing out on possible sales.  Sometimes it is just a small tweak that can save the day but sometimes it can mean a bit of an overhaul.  This prospect is daunting to a lot of website owners but really if you need your website to work for you and your business it really is a necessary task.

I’m not necessarily talking about changing the website design as this may not be the issue (as long as the design itself meets the usability guidelines).  It could just be a content issue and this is easily fixed up without having to overhaul everything.

However, if the website is not meeting any usability guidelines at all it probably is best to look at the design of the website as certain design elements may need to be moved around or even removed.

I have put together a checklist which will help you evaluate your website. This list is by no means exhaustive but the points covered are essentially the main areas that you need to check out.

If you are still not convinced that your website design needs to take account of web usability guidelines then have a look at some websites yourself. If you find yourself looking away or leaving the website within 5 seconds then that website has issues.  I found a website the other day that had a really bright white background and black bold text. I couldn’t even look at it as it was very glaring so guess what, I left the site. Another site had some beautiful photos as part of the banner but they were moving so quickly that all I could focus on was the movement. I just couldn’t focus on any other part of the site so I left without reading the content.

So, why bother?  Well, put it another way. Don’t bother if you don’t want visitors to your site to stay on your site and do what they came there to do. Don’t bother if you don’t want your website to be critical to the success of your company. Don’t bother if you want your competitors to get your business.