What is ease of use?
Ease of use means that your website is easier for users to use, allowing users to quickly find the information they need where they need it. Analogous to Google's proposition of "shortening the time users spend on Google", for websites, we do not reduce the time users spend on the website, but shorten the time users spend looking for key information and guidance.
Many people think that making a website usable requires a lot of manpower, financial and material resources. Indeed, there are many large websites that have invested a lot of money and equipment in research and testing of website usability, but for our daily lives For small websites, we still have ways to improve the usability of the website without experts and professional equipment.
1. Contains tagline.
A tagline is a place used to state your company's philosophy, goals, or website vision. This section should be the most eye-catching part of the website and should summarize the site in a few words. Statistics show that a page only has 8 seconds to attract a user to continue browsing, so if it cannot attract users with eye-catching focus, then the page is a failure.
Many foreign sites use Tagline or eye-catching Flash. Domestic sites can also use this. Sometimes when there is a lot of content, they can also use Banner + focus image. This should be treated according to different website types. For example, for a product-based website, you can just use a focus image or eye-catching and distinctive Flash to attract attention. If it is an information or topic page, you may need a Banner to highlight the theme of the page. There should also be a focus map to show some recent developments. This requires constant experience and accumulation during the production process.
2. Provide on-site search.
On-site search is also very important for users, especially when the content of the site begins to increase so that users cannot easily find what they want, users often think of searching. You can imagine the pain of searching through links one by one in the blog garden for a certain article you have seen before.
The length and position of the search box also need to be paid attention to. It cannot be too small. It is best to place it in the upper right area because there is an "F" trend (F Pattern) according to the user's browsing habits. The text of the submit button should be clear. Tells the user that the next action to take place is a search.
3. Don’t abuse pictures.
From an ease-of-use perspective, Less Is Always More.
4. Use sitemaps.
A sitemap is a feature that improves on-site navigation and search engine optimization (SEO). A typical sitemap provides the structure of the site and navigation to individual pages. A sitemap can be in any form, it can be a web page or a list of pages, as long as they are organized hierarchically.
Recently, Google, Yahoo, and MSN have begun to provide Sitemap Protocol services, which are very similar to sitemaps, but the data is organized in the form of XML.
5. Don’t disrupt workflow.
Workflow refers to the operations performed by users on the website, such as filling out forms, registering users, browsing directories, files, etc. Users must be allowed to undo operations. If there is no option to go back or return, users will be forced to do what they don’t want to do. action, or they may simply close the browser to clean things up.
The order of operations on some sites is not so obvious, and prompts are needed to guide users. For example, when you enter Yahoo Music for the first time, there will be a wizard to guide you step by step to familiarize yourself with each functional area on the page. There will also be game teaching when playing games. If it is also provided on the website, it will bring a good user experience.
Another misunderstanding is changing the style of hyperlinks. Traditional portals often leave the hyperlink in its original state, so as to give the user a clear indication that this is a hyperlink, and by clicking on it, I can enter a new page. Of course, I don't agree that the style of hyperlinks must not be changed, but if it changes, we must show it through icons or text, and users can click on this link to reach another page.
6. Make the website easier to be "scanned".
The readability of content can increase user loyalty and keep users on the site to get the content they need. But research shows that many users are not reading the page, but "scanning" it, getting information by scanning titles, highlighted text, and highlighted lists.
Jacbo Nilsen discovered through visual tracking that users' browsing resembles an F-shape, with them "scanning" the page from left to top.
His experiment also came to a conclusion:
users do not read word by word, but extract information from paragraphs and highlighted text.
The first two paragraphs of the article are very important. These two paragraphs must contain most of the content of the article.
Subheadings and lists can regain the user's attention. Use these elements to emphasize important content.
The experience gained from traditional paper media also tells us to organize content into an inverted pyramid. The key question is, how can we know what information is important to users and what information is not important to users? The author recommends a tool: News Values.
7. Don’t design interface elements that are easily misleading.
Never design content that looks like a button but is not. We are often misled by underlined text, and when we click on it, we find that they are not links at all!
Yahoo is a good positive example.
8. Give users meaningful tips.
Everyone should have a consensus on this point. Do not output error information directly to the page. Instead, give the user processed information that the user can understand.
9. Don’t overuse Javascript.
We need to be careful to avoid browser compatibility issues with excessive use of Javascript and Ajax technologies, and we need to weigh this cost well.
10. Avoid validators.
The use of validators is added where necessary. If it is not so necessary, it is still necessary to comply with the lazy nature of human beings and remove those validators.
Summary: Improving the usability of a website does not necessarily require sticking to rules, but before we have enough skills, these rules can provide us with a good direction. There are also many debates about these rules, such as avoiding the use of verifiers. In many cases, we must use verifiers to avoid the generation of spam, just like the security check when flying, although it is an uncomfortable thing. , but he has his purpose.
The ease of use of a website is not everything about the website. We must weigh the ease of use, page design, site maintainability and security, and adopt different strategies for different types of projects.
References:
[1], http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2008/12/10-usability-tips-for-web-designers/
[3] , News Values. http://mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11178/171/newsvals.htm#top