Features to Improve Website Usability
Posted by:
Gordon Fletcher on April 7th, 2011
In Website Development
The success of your website depends on the opinions of its users. Regardless of your target market, the basic goal of your website should be to provide users a fulfilling experience. Here are some of the fundamental features that you website needs to have to ensure better usability.
Accessibility
Accessibility should be a priority in website development. Regardless of how great your website is, unless users are able to access it, it won’t serve any purpose. Achieving complete accessibility is a difficult task and even major organizations struggle over it. But a number of things can be done to improve accessibility. For instance, use of valid CSS and HTML coding and use of alt tags for images.
Page load speed
In spite of increased availability of high speed internet connections, a large number of people still use slower dial-up connections. Your website may have some pages that load slowly even on high speed internet. Rather than waiting for your pages to load, many users would just switch to a competing website. Even if they do stay on your site, the number of pages they visit will be less. So it is essential to ensure that your pages load quickly.
Information
Users come to a site for a reason. They may be looking for products, services, entertainment or information. By ensuring that your site provides visitors exactly what they are seeking, you can gain many loyal customers. Anticipate what visitors to your site would want and ensure that you provide it. Effective web traffic marketing and great content are a winning combination.
Navigation
Simple and intuitive navigation is essential for website usability. Maintain consistency in placement of major navigation elements on all pages. Ensure that users can reach any page on your website within a maximum of two clicks.
