Thursday, May 13, 2010

Website Usability

What is Usability?

For an instance picture that you went to an unknown city, where you kept getting lost, couldn’t find out where to go and couldn’t find any one to ask for help. Would you still want to spend time there? Or would you want to get the heck out of there and go somewhere else which you can travel and enjoy? This is the same for websites as well.

To create websites that the users understand we have to understand the users and how they think. First-class "usability" is about manipulating things so that they make sense to the people who use them. The communication that users have with a thing should meet their needs and wants as elegantly as possible -- whether it's a Web site or a Software System. If it doesn't, they will not want to use it. Of course, usability isn't the only consideration. However, usability can build or fracture the sensation of your site. Sadly, spending time and money doing usability work is sometimes a difficult task, because people don't tend to notice the implementation of usability concepts, only the lack of them. 

User Cantered Development is a viewpoint and a method. It is a viewpoint that places the person at the centre; it is a process that focuses on cognitive factors such as perception, memory, learning, problem-solving, etc.) as they come into play during peoples' interactions with things. Let’s see what we have to concern when developing user cantered websites. Guidelines can provide a general idea about the users and what they want. But this is not sufficient to develop a enormous website. You need to occupy users from the beginning by discovering their mental modes, using them as the important part of the design, observing them, validating your assumptions and imaginations and feedback through them. You need to ask questions from the users as much as possible regarding their requirements. You need to watch and act together with the users imaginations. You should not attend to the final design so soon. Explore different designs and approaches. 

Remember, assessment occurs at every step of the process to keep the goals of the website and the users’ needs in focal point. And if it comes down to a alternative, don’t sacrifice usability; reduce the span of the project instead.

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