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Site usability and testing

It is sad but true, that very many websites fall down in the area of usability. Because the site designers knows their sites backwards, they fail to appreciate that a first-time visitor will see things very differently. It’s like visiting a new city as a tourist, rather than being a native dweller!

Factors which contribute to good usability:

• clear, logical navigation system, which follows best practice standards, so the user finds it familiar and does not have to learn anything new
• an intuitive and logical site structure
• an obvious sense of “where am I, where have I been, and where can I go”
• an easy way of searching the site, if it is reasonably large
• links that display clearly as obvious hyperlinks
• appropriate use of color, with special regard to color-blind users
• body text which is not too small, and not fixed size
• plenty of white space, informative page headings, short paragraphs, plus subheadings to lead the eye through the page.

Large businesses spend thousands on usability testing of their sites. But although most Christian sites are run with a minimal or even virtually zero budget, this does not mean that you cannot run some very revealing tests. These can transform your site’s usability. Please do not neglect this vital task: it is totally essential, yet very easy.

How to test for usability on a zero budget [www.wilsonweb.com/design/follansbee-usability-zero.htm]

Browser testing

Another area which many sites fail to test: page appearance in different browsers, screen resolutions and font-size settings. At a minimum, you should check how the site looks:

• at 800 x 600, and 1024 x 768 screen resolutons. (The Firefox ‘extension’ Web Developer’s Toolbar [http://chrispederick.com/work/webdeveloper] helps to make this easy – otherwise just resize a browser window smaller than 1024.)
• in Windows IE6, IE7, and Firefox; and if possible also in Mac Safari and Mac Firefox.
• at different font size settings: Firefox over-rides fixed font settings (which are very irritating to users anyway – never use them). Use a wheel mouse (CTRL + wheel) to resize fonts, and check how text expands and where it causes a problem. (Resizing some CSS dimensions in ems rather than pixels can help here.)
• with javascript disabled. 5% of web users are in this situation. Make sure that there are noscript alternatives and fall-backs for all javascript functionalities.
• for users with visual disability. Learn more about making sites accessible [www.webaim.org/articles/screenreader_testing] to them. Be aware that color-blind people cannot distinguish between certain colors. Use this color tester.

More reading

• More on easy navigation – why easy navigation is so important
• Accessibility – more on writing, design, and navigation
• Design principles [www.digital-web.com/articles/principles_of_design] – attractive graphic design and layout contributes to usabality