Usability rules
for good websites

Ease of use/navigation:	74%
Fast download time:	65%
Regularly updated information:	58%
Quality of content:	57%
Organisation of content:	40%
Access to customer service:	40%
Quantity of content:	30%
Search tool on the site:	25%
Homepage layout:	20%
Fun:	19%
Look and feel of the site:	18%
Inclusion of animated graphics:	9%

Interestingly, if your site is an online store, then the two most important factors to your vistors are:

Easy order processing:	68%
Security procedures:	65%

The survey was conducted between March 30 and April 3, 2001, and is based on responses from 990 online users surveyed by Knowledge Systems & Research Inc.

How to turn people off
As a contrast, there are ten things which will make a visitor never come back. The UK Internet Magazine http://www.internet-magazine.com did a survey - probably of more experienced and mature users but probably typical. The top 10 web iritations were:

1. Slow loading websites 87%
2. Help buttons that can't help 83%
3. Requests for personal details before being allowed to progress into the site 82%
4. Irrelevant search results 79%
5. Poorly organised content 78%
6. No search facility 75%
7. Scrolling down/through lots of pages to get to the info 74%
8. Adverts
9. Pop-up boxes 70%
10. Cluttered Design 63%

The Sage Writes Jakob Nielsen writes about Usability in the February 2001 Internet Magazine. He is the top guru on this sort of thing. A lot of this discussion is on his website http://www.useit.com I quote:

• Its all about making your site easier. Adding fancy features is fairly irrelevant because people don't have time to look at them. If its not easy they just don't use the site.
• You make it easy and simple people say there is nothing to it. Its always obvious in retrospect. But if it is that obvious why did they make things complicated in the first place.
• Its whether anyone will use your website in the first place. If he doesn't immediately understand the homepage he goes elsewhere. He has to be encouraged to stay before you can ask him for money.
• The response time of a human is one second. If a user has to wait over 10 seconds, the mind starts wandering.
• Every company's first attempt at creating a website is doomed to fail. It is difficult to reject everything you know. You are too close to the product.

• Ensure a quick download - something useful in 8 seconds max, the time that you can hold your breath,
• Beware cutting-edge technology - visitors are not prepared to spend the time working out how to find your content,
• Keep it calm - moving images have an overpowering effect on human peripheral vision,
• Limit your frames - the search engines may have difficulty in referencing, humans may have difficulty printing or bookmarking, and with small displays the contents frame may be too small to be useful,
• Choose a simple address - short enough to be remembered by a customer you meet at the bus stop,
• Stay up-to-date - if the website is not current it immediately loses credibility,
• Keep scrolling short - only 10% of visitors scroll down beyond the information 'above the fold', that is visible when the page first comes up. And horizontal scrolling is a no-no,
• Provide a Sitemap and a search tool - for visitors who might have difficulty finding information,
• Brand all your pages - make sure every page has a clear indication of which website they belong to, not least because many users will enter through a back door to specific page gained from friends or a search engine,

Above the Fold: The figure of speech which comes from the broadsheet newspaper business. If a broadsheet newspaper (as distinct from a tabloid) is set up in a newsrack, you can see only the top half of the front page. The stuff "above the fold" has to be compelling enough to get you to buy the paper.

1. must load quickly.
2. polished, easy to read, and easy to navigate.
3. well maintained and updated regularly.
4. offer thorough, unbiased information that answers a user's question.
5. offer additional links or information related to the user's question.
6. be credible sources of information. That is, they should provide author and source citations, and contact information.
7. sites and site features must be free and available without registration.

Our Evaluation Experience
Experience in evaluating websites has thrown up the the following common problems:

• Entrance Tunnel - very fashionable at the moment but almost always counter-productive,
• Frames - particularly on the homepage. Frames can use up too much space on the display,
• Big images with slow loading on the homepage,
• Name, address and contact details not shown or difficult to find - without at least name and hometown the site has little credibility, and if you want customers to contact you why make it difficult for them,
• Objective not clear - what is this website trying to show me, who is the target audience,
• Not Search Engine-friendly, poor METAs, Title, inappropriate text on the homepage,
• Not 640-friendly - would not degrade elegantly for users of smaller displays or those who choose to surf in a smaller browser window, or print on normal paper,
• Difficult to read - lack of contrast, changes of background, long text lines, flashing or moving things, pop-ups and drop downs,
• Banner advertising, usually on freebee webspace,
• Over-complex - trying to sell too many things on one homepage,
• Big ambitions on a small website - limit the site to something you can do a good job on.

This is combined with clever features which are counter-productive and should probably be avoided.

http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ by Vincent Flanders is a rather splendid site shwowing actual examples of poor design.

http://siteusability.com/links.html by Lois Wakeman is an excellent list of links to Usability websites. She also talks a lot of sense in the rest of the site.