Top 15 Usability Factors For Your Website

Usability of the website is the major factor that determines how successful your website is. While designing a website one must keep in mind that the website should be user friendly. If the website is designed keeping in mind the needs of the visitors then it is more likely to fetch more visitors. The top 15 usability factors that can assist in improving your website are:

• Simplicity -The more simple the website, the more user friendly it is. Complex websites may create ambiguities and hence drive the user away from the website.
• Write effectively - While writing the content of the website, keep in mind that you are writing for a web viewer and not a newspaper reader. The writing should not be very bulky and should be complemented with attractive images.
• Know your user's thought process - Web viewers generally do not spend much time on a particular page. They quickly look at each new page, scan some of the text, click on the main heading link, see the pictures, get valuable information and then close the window. So plan your design accordingly.
• Do not make the user think - Putting in a lot of complex stuff in your website might force the user to think. The website architecture should be designed keeping in mind the short attention span of the web users and thus ensuring that the user does not feel the need to navigate from the page to page.
• Easy navigability - Ease in moving from one page to another greatly facilitates the users and makes them like the website.
• Focus user attention - Your website should contain elements that are capable of attracting the attention of the users and making them stay on the suite for the desired time period.
• Don't try to resize user's browser window - As it may give the impression of a spam site.
• Do not keep the size of hyperlinks too small or big - Hyperlinks are clickable areas so make them neither too small nor too big as it looks awkward or not clear to the site visitor.
• Avoid duplicate page titles- Distinct page titles help not only the visitors but also the website to get a good ranking on the search engine so avoid using duplicate page titles as they might be confusing.
• Always have a Search tab- A search tab on the web page helps in easily finding the required information on the page and greatly facilitates the user.
• Functionalities that require registration by users should be avoided - This is because they prove to be vey discouraging.
• Pagination used for wrong purposes - Sometimes people use pagination just for getting more web pages which may prove to be an obstacle in promoting the site on search engines.
• Content that is difficult to scan- It should be avoided and the copy should be made more attractive where the user can get the required information just by a quick glance.
• Do not put long registration forms on your website- As these are very time consuming and require the user to remember an ID and password after filling of the form. Try to make the forms shorter.
• Always remember that old Permalinks (a link which is not supposed to be changed once created) become broken links so these need to be regularly updated.

Thus, by following the above mentioned steps, you can create a user friendly and successful website in no time to attract viewers from every corner of the globe.