A usable site will:
A website is going to be generally usable if:
A website with good content, regardless of its subject, is one that provides products or information that is useful or beneficial to users. A good usable site will make it clear what information or content can be obtained and at what price AND what is unavailable. A good usable site should define clearly all subscription packages offered.
Good navigation, precise location indicators, secondary navigation, clear linked text along with a well organized structure all bring about making information simple to find for any wide range of different users. Bearing in mind that many users are inexperienced, it might be necessary to include explanations of stuff you consider self-explanatory. For instance, an inexperienced user may need a reason of using a drop down menu.
Fast access to information - This is actually the aim of the majority of web users. It may be broken into two main reasons:
Speed of page loading - This involves, in particular, focus on images to be properly optimized and do not excessively delay load time. It may also mean breaking up long articles and ensuring that important content is at the top the page where it will load first.
Speed of access to content - This is when the much-vaunted 3-click rule comes in - no important content should be more than 3 clicks from the webpage. Some standards even say that it should be no more than two clicks.
One helpful way to speed use of content is to consider each type of user, choose the content that they are most likely to be interested in that will create links from the webpage to one piece of content for each group. This can get them quickly to the appropriate part of the site.
Cleanly designed pages are pleasant to look at and simple to read. It's nearly impossible to make a site by having an image shown like a tiled background usable - everything is simply too distracting and confusing. It requires no great design skills to produce clean pages; it simply requires thought and adherence to the principle that when it comes to design, less usually is more.
Most paid membership websites are restricted to online access and information download instead of selling products. There should be clear download instructions. In case of information download, it is crucial that you show a download bar and also the download status. Many websites offer huge files for download but while the user is downloading he/she doesn't have concept of the status from the download or the speed of the download. This is frustrating especially in the case of larger files and often you'd see users canceling the download midway and leaving the website. Your website should also state the size of the file in kilobytes and the estimated duration of download for a user using a 56K modem, DSL, Cable and so forth.
While for large commercial sites investment in full-scale usability studies very can be not just useful but essential, few small sites can afford such luxuries. However, identifying problems with usability for your site need be no more complicated than asking a few friends to do something as guinea pigs on your site and, if possible, watching them silently as they do this. Watching users try to find information at your site can be both instructive and quite surprising. Remember that if at any stage you feel the need to intervene and explain, then you have identified a usability problem.
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