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Helping You Make the Most of Your Small Office/Home Office
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Greetings,
Do you have a 'usable' website? Find out how to make your
site easy to use so that you attract customers rather than
drive them away!
Best,
Mandi
P.S. You can discuss this issue or any other topic in the
new SoHo News & Tips forum. Check it out here...
SoHo News & Tips Forum
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- General Motors and Renault-Nissan end alliance
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- California Attorney General Bill Lockyer to file
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- Wal-Mart Stores testing a uniform for its 1.3
million US employees as an attempt to attract more
upscale shoppers...
- EchoStar Communications Corp. wins court ruling
to continue selling DVRs that compete with TiVo's...
- Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. adds more net
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- The U.S. Federal Trade Commission approves joint
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Is Your Web Site 'Usable'?
By Kim Komando
Let's start with this scenario: You need to buy
something and you decide to do some advance
research online.
You try one company's Web site. It's plain, but it
lists pricing information, the models it services,
and its contact information. Then you try another
company's site. It makes you sit through a three-
minute Flash presentation before letting you
explore the site. (There's a "skip this intro"
button at the top right, but the button is
camouflaged.) And, instead of getting pricing
information, you have to fill out a form and wait
for a salesperson to call.
You're probably going to call the first company,
right?
As you might infer by our second example, a Web
site's elegance is simply not going to win over
users. If your site is not easily navigable and
doesn't contain relevant and up-to-date
information, you're driving customers away.
That's where Web site "usability" comes into play.
According to Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman
Group, an internationally recognized expert in
this area, "Usability is a quality attribute that
assesses how easy user interfaces are to use."
Here are six things you need to do to make your
Web site "usable."
1. Help your customers find their way. How easy is
it to get around your Web site? When customers
look at the home page, do they see a clearly
marked navigation system? Or do they have to roam
around clicking things until something happens?
Think hard about whether you really need to be a
navigation trailblazer. If your navigation system
is radically different than others, you'll confuse
your users. A simple drop-down or tabbed menu
using words is fine. It may not look as cool or
trendy, but your users will be able to find what
they need.
Let's consider a small bookstore's Web site as an
example.
Imagine using pictures of books on the left-hand
side of the page. When you mouse over the picture,
the book opens and tells you the genre. It's clever
but impractical.
Your customers don't want to remember that the
third book down is the home-improvement section
and the sixth book takes you to romance novels.
And they don't want to wait three seconds for the
book to open to find where that link will lead.
2. Say what you mean, and say it clearly. It's so
easy to get caught up in marketing lingo and buzz-
words. But they may well confuse the customer. If
you are selling a product or offering a service,
state it clearly.
There are countless Web sites filled with warm and
fuzzy slogans that never get to the point. What
exactly does "providing solutions to problems"
mean? What are the problems? How are they solved?
And a user shouldn't have to click on the About Us
page (you do have one, right?) to figure out what
your business does. That information should be on
your home page.
3. Keep it simple. A splash page — which is a
special landing page for product offers, sale
items or special features, often with lots of
graphics and color — may be a great way for Web
designers to show their talent. But for many
customers, it can be an annoyance. I say, dump it.
But if you must have a splash page, consider
giving your customers a "Skip this" link (if you
have the same basic information on another page).
Keep pictures, large text, flashing banners and
the like to a minimum. Those types of gimmicks
generally cheapen a site. They also make the Web
pages take longer to download.
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For example, I have reviewed many products from
one particular company (that shall remain nameless).
The products offered are of high quality, but the
company's Web site is a flashing, gaudy mess. It
makes the company look like it's peddling junk.
Your Web site doesn't have to be barebones. But it
shouldn't be obnoxious, either.
4. Provide information, not marketing-speak. Think
about why people visit your Web site. They go
there to get information or to buy a product. Make
it as easy as possible to find the information
they want — not just what you want to provide. I
personally dislike lots of advertising puffery and
grinning people. Please, just tell me what you do.
One sure irritant is pricing secrecy. Don't make a
customer fill out a form to find out how much
something will cost. You'd be annoyed if you walked
into a grocery store and had to fill out a form to
get the price of milk.
Obviously, if you sell insurance, you can't
publish a price list. But you can set up a page
that calculates several variables and provides
free ballpark quotes. Customers want instant
information. Give it to them.
It's also important to update your site regularly.
It does you no good if the contact information for
sales is for someone who left the company months
ago. Unfortunately, many companies throw up a Web
site and then forget about it.
5. Test your site — again and again. There is one
simple way to attain good usability. Testing, test-
ing and more testing. But you have to test with
the right people.
Your customers and readers are the best people to
test a site. They are the ones who use your site.
Unless your core audience is Web designers and
tech-savvy users, avoid using these people as your
guinea pigs. What's obvious to them could leave
the true users scratching their heads.
If possible, be in the same room as the tester(s).
And test individually. That way you can observe
and write notes as questions and problems arise.
Don't answer questions. If something isn't obvious
to users, you'll have to tweak the design.
It may sound like testing takes a ton of time and
money, but it doesn't. For a small site, it should
take about 20 minutes or so per user. Four or five
users is a good sample to get sufficient feedback.
After testing, changes should only take a day or
two. You can always offer a free product or service
— or perhaps a gift certificate to a restaurant —
for the tester's time.
6. Be a usability advocate; it can pay off. Having
a Web site with strong usability could boost your
bottom line.
The Nielsen Norman Group (www.nngroup.com)
conducted a study on the return on investment of
42 redesigned Web sites. Owners of those sites
spent an average of 10% of their Web budget on
usability. After redesigning the sites, site
usability increased by 135%, the sales-conversion
rate increased 100% and traffic increased 150%,
according to the study.
Yes, it's easy to see why you need usability. But
I will be the first to tell you that it's also
difficult to attain over time, especially if you
have a Web site that changes, grows and evolves.
This is something that I struggle with on my own
site. I am continually updating it based on user
feedback.
Web usability does take time, money and attention.
But it pays off in the long run.
DID YOU KNOW?
One way to hold on to your competitive edge is to protect
your trade secrets -- confidential information that gives
you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Examples of
trade secrets include customer lists, survey methods,
marketing strategies, and manufacturing techniques. To
protect your trade secrets under the law, you need to take
steps to keep the information confidential. This includes
marking documents "Confidential," using passwords to protect
computer information, using nondisclosure and/or noncompete
agreements, and limiting access to employees with a reason-
able need to know the trade secrets.
So what did you think about this issue? Drop me a line and let
me know at mailto:mandi@gophercentral.com
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