Your most important marketing tool is your website. So why would you ignore usability best practices that will help your business make strides to the next level?
The answer is you would not. No one would. That is crazy talk.
There are numerous ways to create cool websites. That in and of itself can be a mistake. How often are cool and stylish websites a failure because they do not take the usability needs of users into account? The answer is more than any of us realize.
In the era where the web is of utmost importance clients calls the shots. You should ensure that your site is clean, uncomplicated in structure, easy to navigate, properly tagged and chock full of organized content and information.
Here are a few more Usability Best Practices to Consider:
1. Ensure that Your Content is as Concise as Possible
A study conducted by Jakob Nielsen indicated that individual attention spans are short when it comes to reading articles or books. This means that if your web content is mostly words and filled with extraneous details then they will soon leave. The study further indicated that people tend to skim through articles and web pages to get the information they are looking for.
To grab user attention come up with a short and readable content. Remember that shorter articles improve readability.
Let’s do an experiment. Did you read the above paragraph? Here is the TLDR version:
- Ensure that you cut out all unnecessary information
- Get straight to the point
- Use easy, shorter, common phrases and words
- Avoid any long sentence or paragraphs.
2. Use Text Formatting or Bullet Points
According to research by ClickTale, users tend to fixate their eyes longer on a bullet point list or a text formatting like italics and bold. With this in mind, you can now up your game with some site text formatting.
Tips to consider:
- Break paragraphs into bulleted sentences or points
Highlight all the important details in italics or bold.
3. Use Pictures to Relay Information
Using visuals will improve if they replace or even reinforce longer blocked sentences. In fact, users pay more attention to photos and other types of images which contain relevant information. Ensure that you in-cooperate impotent information with the images you post on your website. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words.
Tips to consider when using pictures to relay information:
- Ensure that images add textual content
- Avoid stock photos and any meaningless visual in your web page.
Go forth with these usability best practices and you will not only capture the attention of your viewers but also create loyalty between you and your clients. This will translate to the growth of the organization. Just make sure that you apply them thoughtfully on your website.