Category: Web Usability

Categories
Web Usability

Best Resources for Web Usability

“Studies show that for every dollar a company invests to increase usability, it receives $10-$100 in benefits, and wins customer satisfaction and loyalty.” – IBM

What is usability? Why is it important? How to improve it?

Somewhere from 2004-2005, I was asked to develop recruitment website. Since then, I begin to fall in love on web usability. It is interesting. I read many articles about it. I applied what I learnt on this recruitment website and my own personal home page. Until today I am still passionate about it, in fact more lately.

Here, I would like to provide some best resouces you can look for if you are keen about it.

  • http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ – Written by Jakob Nielsen (his credential).
  • http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/
  • http://www.usability.gov/pdfs/guidelines.html – There are eight Ph.D who has contributed to this web usability guidelines. It is a very comprehensive study (292 pdf pages). There are many print screens to help you to understand certain points in this pdf file.
  • http://usableweb.com/ – If you are still not enough of it, there are 786 links for you to go there. Some might be a repeat though.
    • Categories
    Web Usability Website Online Tools

    Free Website Performance Tool and Web Page Speed Analysis

    “The homepage is the most important page on most websites, and gets more page views than any other page” – Jakob Nielsen

    There are many useful tips to improve your home page (home page is means your first page in your website). For that you can check on http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20020512.html

    Here, I would like to focus on just one point, page loading time. Since home page is the first page people normally visit, it is important to make sure your home page load fast. You know, first impression.

    One of the main area which affects the page loading time is your page size. Page size does not just include the size of your html and images, but also your external page, like external style sheet, Javascript and etc.

    The good news is you don’t need to check on your page size manually. There are online tool out there to help you. And this is what I have been using. Second good news, it is free!

    After you have reached that site, just type your domain and click “Submit Query” (below is the print screen)

    Then, it will show you the report of your site, with some recommendation to improve it. Ops .. my personal home page has exceeded the optimum page size a bit. (below is the print screen)

    More Resources

  • http://www.benefit-from-it.com/index.php?fa=wdu101needSpeed.loadTime
  • Ten ways to speed up the download time of your web pages
    • Categories
    Web Usability

    Writing Web Content

    Compilation of Writing Web Content tips:

  • Content Title – Catchy, 4-5 words and direct.
  • Use Simple English – avoid jargons.
  • Concise – express much in few words, because users don’t read much text. They scan text.
  • Check grammar and spelling
  • Make it interesting – After you have solid and informative content, make sure you deliver it interesting. Maybe you can sprinkle some humors into them.
  • Limit the Number of Words and Sentences – to enhance the readability of prose text, a sentence should not contain more than 20 words. A paragraph should not contain more than 6 sentences.
  • Well-structured – Example

    1st paragraph – outline your article, share the points you are going
    review in the article, and state why these points are important.

    2nd paragraph – review point one

    3rd paragraph – review point two

    4th paragraph – review point three

    5th paragraph – summary. restate the points of your article and reiterate why those points were important.

    • References

  • Criteria of a Quality Article
  • Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines

    • More Resources

  • http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/copywriting.cfm
  • http://www.alistapart.com/topics/content/writing/