Websites are designed to be used by people. As obvious as this sounds, designers and developers often design websites to be used by other web designers, web developers or computer boffins, completely disregarding the actual typical user. Usability design is about keeping the browsing process as simple and self-explanatory as possible.

How We As Users Behave

1. We are usually in a hurry to find what we are looking for. The last thing we want is to feel like we are wasting time struggling through a website.
2. Secondly, we dislike struggling to figure out how things work.
3. We don’t read everything just because it’s readable. In many cases content will be scanned over in the process of navigating. Content is scanned instead of read. We do this because we know that it is not necessary to read everything in order to locate what we need. We scan for words and phrases that match the task at hand, which match our interests, and trigger words like “Sale”. Too much visual clutter camouflages those scan-friendly components.
4. We take chances when presented with options. We click on the first thing that resembles what we are looking for. This is because there is no real consequence of clicking on the wrong link, yet clicking on the wrong link wastes time. We are grateful for the back button, but having to use it every two seconds when clicking on an unclear link in an unordered list of options, is annoying.
5. Familiarity is reassuring and comforting to us. Familiar conventions counter confusion and unnecessary challenges. A generic website format employing tried and trusted conventions might be dull and predictable, but predictable is what makes the site usable.

Here are a few website conventions that are familiar to us web users:

• a top menu bar displays the most important navigation gateways;
• clickable links on the page will be highlighted and made prominent by means of styling;
• a side column will hold extra options for browsing;
• an internal search box will appear beneath the page header; and
• important information, that is not commonly used such as the site map, and the privacy policy, will appear in small print in the super footer of the page.

It’s simple. If a user leaves your website frustrated and unsatisfied they’re probably not coming back. No matter how awesome your content is or how much brand loyalty you may have earned, a badly structured website is only going to increase your bounce rate and drop your repeat visits.

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital agency | www.soundidea.co.za

Julian Karstel is a Digital Marketing Consultant for Sound Idea Digital | @JulianKarstel| Julian@soundidea.co.za

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