Usability in web design - An academic study

Since the dawn of web 2.0 the internet is becoming ever more crowded. Its inclusive nature has meant that numerous platforms are available that allow people to publish material and create pages. Nowadays if you search small niche topics you will get numerous results, all of relevant high quality websites. What does this mean for the web designer and publisher? It means that competition is getting stiffer, users will no longer put up with a poorly designed website as the information or product they are looking for is more than likely available somewhere more hospitable. Therefore designers have to be careful and ensure what they build is user friendly.

Academics have similar opinions when it comes to the importance of website usability and accessibility. Nielson and Norman (2000) argue that website usability isn’t a luxury anymore but a necessity. They outline how easy it is for customers to leave your site and go to another; they discuss how “low switching costs” make it easy for users to go from one site to another. Similarly Rosenfeld and Morville (2000) write about how short the “attention span” of internet users is, how users often decide they don’t like a website before the page even has a chance to fully load. Krugg(2005) in his book agrees with the idea that web users have an incredibly short attention span. He further develops the argument by outlining how research has shown that users often scan the web page rather than spending time reading it. He even entitled his book “Don’t make me think” Krugg(2005) to describe the mindset of the average internet user. It is clear from both the work of academics and our own individual experience that we as website users are notoriously fickle and that we will not put up with slow loading pages, badly designed navigation, overly complicated pages or other design errors.

Therefore, what factors should we as web designers take into consideration to ensure that users don’t leave our site? In this essay I am going to discuss the factors that should be considered when designing a usable website. I will firstly discuss why websites should be categorised. Then I will discuss the factors that are important to the usability of websites from the perspective of each of these categories. I will draw upon academic literature and use examples in each category to illustrate my points.

When we are designing a website we must firstly consider what it will be used for. Rosenfeld and Morville(2000) liken the work of a web designer to that of an architect. They stress the importance of considering the use of the web site just like an architect must consider the use of the building. Architects would design a home differently from a hospital just like a web designer would design an e-store differently from a small business website. Hence in order to discuss the importance of the factors that affect the usability of website we must firstly try to classify the uses of various types of websites. There are many different types of websites that were built with different aims and objectives in mind. Some examples include forums such as boards.ie, social networks like facebook.com and classified advertising websites like craigslist. There are hundreds of categories and sub categories of websites, covering all of them would be impossible. For this reason I will focus on three broad categories; they are corporate websites, community websites and e-stores.

Corporations are constantly working to maintain an image of trust worthiness and quality. They use various marketing tools to impact upon consumers. Kuzic and Dawson(2004) in their paper discuss how the quality of a  company’s website impacts on the overall image of the company especially among those  who were studying or working in the area of information systems. They investigated which features of a website most impact upon the user experience and image of the corporation. They sampled a large number of students and concluded that factors such as “the ability to enter the site without having to download software; quick to download web pages; as well as easily readable, clear and easy to understand web pages” were among the highest ranked features. It is obvious that the downloading of software to view a website has a significant impact on the user experience. Therefore it is imperative that when a corporate website is designed that no coding or software should be embedded that may require the user to download additional plugins for their browser. AIB ensure that all their content is accessible. They have an aesthetically pleasing webpage with information accessible through drop down menus. They also have their website coded to support all browsers(see code). Their webpage is free of unnecessary videos and images that would slow down the downloading process and distract the user, text is kept to a minimum to avoid page clutter. Levis Strauss take a different approach. Their website is filled with imagery and interactivity that allows the user to delve into Levis past. This affects pages download time. This page could be considered to be too cluttered and busy for a non tech savvy web user. However for someone who is used to the web and has a fast connection this is an attractive site that could keep you on it for some time.

To conclude these two corporate websites are greatly contrasting in their styles. AIBs’ website is very simple with minimal clutter whereas Levis’s website is full of slow loading images, Levis seems to go against a lot of what is mentioned by Kuzic and Dawson(2004). This is because both companies serve very different consumers. AIB is a bank, people will use their site for information and nothing more. Levis is a brand aimed at younger generations; their consumers expect interactivity and something that says Levis is a cool hip brand when they enter the website. Therefore one must not only consider what category your website falls under. One must look beyond that again and consider who will be on the website and what they will want to see? Only when this has been decided can we look at what features should be included and excluded from the finished product.

Designing a website for community interaction is somewhat different than designing for other forms of websites.Feller(2000) discusses the design of Community website, he mentions three aspects of the community design process that impact on the usability of the site. They are “the interface for registering”, “the interface for contributing” and “the interface for consuming”. The registration interface will be vital as it will be the difference between getting members and not getting members. The interface must be well labelled and not collect any unnecessary information. Privacy is a vital issue here as, “as with the purchase mechanism, it is important the customer respects the customers’ privacy” (Feller, 2000).Paid dating sites are good examples of how clean easy to use web pages attract registrations. The match signup page requires minimal information and is very easy to use, it has drop down boxes to minimise the users effort. Its imagery and slogans tell us what the website is about in an instant. Its registration system is an example of what Maguire (2004) calls “staged obligation”, the potential client is drawn in by being asked for just a small piece of information at the beginning before more information is required on further pages. Contrasting this is the huffduffer sign up page. They approach the concept from a new more creative perspective; however they forget to ask for a confirmation of both password and email address and require all information to be typed.

Another important part of designing a community website according to Feller(2005) is the “interface for contributing” and the “interface for consuming”. He describes how the navigation between content needs to be designed to allow for maximum usability and how leaving comments and approval should be easy. All of these features that allow for interactivity should not obstruct the consumption process. A good example of website that allows for this community interaction without interfering with the consumption process is hubpages. Its articles are the centrepiece of the page but surrounding them are tools to interact with other members. At the top of the page you can share the link on facebook or twitter, to the right of that you can find out more about the writer or choose to follow them and below you can rate the article up or down or leave a comment. It also has links at the bottom of the page to guide you to another article by this reader. This easy to use “interface for contributing” is seamlessly integrated into the “the interface for consumption”. It in no way interferes with the reading of the article.

Ezine articles is a website that has a very similar business model. However, it does not have the same levels of usability, although the “interface for consumption” is well designed it is not well “integrated with the interface” for contributing. Sharing the article linked to above is difficult, there are a number of links below but they are afterthoughts and the links are predominantly adverts meaning the temptation is to leave the site after reading the article. As can be seen from the above, designing easy to use community websites is very different from designing business websites. Different factors must be taken into account that are not considered when designing a business website or estore.

Nielson and Norman(2000) discussed the importance of easy to use web design in their article. They outlined how designing an electronic store that maximises conversions requires a lot of work and analysis. Switching costs on the internet are low meaning that consumers can easily shop around to find the lowest price; similarly they can leave the site within seconds if they can’t find what they are looking for. Amazon has a number of techniques to overcome the low switching costs. They offer their customers added value in the form of detailed customer reviews, they have a recommended products list which shows customers what similar products they might want to buy, they offer an affiliate programme to make customers feel part of the company and finally they have an easy to use purchasing process (Nielson and Norman, 2008). These features combined make for a more pleasant and easier shopping experience. Maguire (2004) adds some further ideas to those outlined by Nielson and Norman above. He discusses the importance of details such as entering credit card numbers. He says that numbers should be broken up into blocks of four just like they are broken up on the card. As Nielson and Norman (2008) outline getting the perfect website design for your e-store is not easy. They stress the need to “observe real customers as they actually use the site”. They say this is the best way to make your estore easy to use and to improve your conversion rate.

We have seen from the above that designing a usable website requires attention to detail. Just as categories of websites differ so do the websites within those categories differ. Each website design process will differ from the one before it and the company’s business overall strategy will also play a huge part in the outcome of the website. Feller (2000) outlines the fundamental questions that web designers must ask before they begin to work , he says that they must “understand who will use the site, how they will use the site , what functionality they will need to use the site and determine what content they will need to use the site”. The designing of a usable website begins from these simple questions but it is a complicated process that goes on long after the site is launched. Today, internet giants like Amazon and Facebook are still striving towards the ultimate usability goal that Steve Krugg set out in 2000. It echoes the mindset of the average internet user and can be applied to all categories of websites. It simply states “don’t make me think” (Krugg, 2000).

Books

1) Feller Joseph (2000). Customer-Friendly Design for E-commerce. Cork: Blackhall Publishing.

2) Jakob Nielsen (2000). Design Web Usability. United States: New Riders.

3) Rosenfeld, Louise. Morville, Peter (1998). Information Architecture for the world wide web. United States: O'Reilly.

4) Krugg, Steve. (2000). How we really use the web. In: Dont make me think. London:Que.

Articles

5) Kuzic,Joze. Dawson,Linda. (2004). Does it really matter?First impressions from a company's web site. Bled eCommerce Conference. 17

6) Nielson,Jakob. Norman,Donald.A. (2000). Web-site usability:Usability on the web isn't a luxury.

7) Maguire,James. (2004). Site design tips to improve your sales. Available: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/solutions/customer_relations/article.php/11834_3402191_2. Last accessed 04/12/2010.

Websites

8) Unknown. (2010). Does my website suck checklist. Available: http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/does-my-web-site-suck/does-my-web-site-suck-checklist-part-one.html. Last accessed 04/12/2010