Tag Archives: usability

What is website usability?

Website usability can span a few key concepts, but essentially it is focused on making any website as user-friendly and easy to navigate as possible. 

In the book; “Don’t make me think!”, Steve Krug summarizes in a clear style the guiding principles that make a website, a mobile app or any software usable, emphasizing in simplicity and common sense as the foundation to design with a user-friendly approach.

In the second chapter of the book, Krug explains that making pages self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: it just makes everything seem better. This idea intends to clarify how people behave while browsing a website.

How do users interact in websites?

  • Users don’t read pages; they scan them. Usually users are in a hurry and they don’t need to read everything to find what they want.
  • Users don’t make optimal choices; they satisfice. Users don’t choose the best option – they choose the first reasonable option.  Why do users do this?  Because very often they are in a hurry; there’s not much penalty for guessing wrong; weighing options may not improve their chances.
  • Users don’t figure out how things work; they muddle through.  Most of the time, it’s not important to users to figure out how things work in a website, and if they find something that works, they stick to it.
How do we interact in websites.

Interaction in websites.

People don’t like to wonder about how to do things. They enjoy puzzles in their place, when they want to have fun, be challenged or entertained but not when they are trying to find out things on the internet. The fact that the people who develop websites do not care enough to make things obvious and simple can undermine user’s confidence in the site and the company behind it.

 How can we design usable websites?

  • Start with a clear visual hierarchy on each page following these recommendations:
    1. More important items are larger/bolder/distinctive color
    2. Things are “nested” visually to show what is part of what. 
    3. Things that are related logically are related visually.

Also, it is crucial for front-end developers to take these instructions into account:

  • Take advantage of conventions.
  • Divide pages into clearly defined areas.
  • Make obvious what is clickable.
  • Page elements should be uncluttered.
web usability diagram

web usability diagram

In the next post, I will explain why developing usable websites applying these principles, helps to grab users’ attention more effectively and makes navigation easier.

Why is the concept of culture important when creating usable e-commerce websites?

The correlation between web usability and ecommerce is of greater significance as more companies from the developed world, seek to expand their operations into emerging markets.

According to internet usage data published by Nielsen//NetRatings, during the year 2015, 37.4% of the world’s e-commerce activity took place in the Asian market, followed by North America with a 31.7.9%, Europe with a 25.9% and Latin America with 6.3 %. Nevertheless, in the year 1996 most of the ecommerce activity took place in North America with 83% of the world total.

It is clear then, that the largest growth in e-commerce transactions occurred in emerging economies that are also more diverse in terms of cultural identity.

Similarly, with the overall growth of ecommerce business transactions in emerging markets, many companies are adapting their web sites to “local” versions. Such adaptation means a specific web design for each market niche that takes into account language and cultural context, preserving at the same the brand integrity.

For example, some studies explain that culturally adapted web sites crafted for each specific market reduce users’ cognitive efforts to process web information, making navigation easier and improving consumers’ attitudes toward the goods and services offered in such ecommerce site.

Why most companies are not adapting their ecommerce websites to each specific market?

The high costs of testing cultural-tailored websites, the obstacles to find key ethnographic elements that effectively contribute to the site’s visual layout and the propensity to cultural ambiguity are some of the reasons why most companies are reluctant to implement culturally adapted ecommerce websites. For instance, in nations such as China and India, the large number of languages and the different connotations images have in each region, may induce designers and web developers to make mistakes in the interpretation of cultural elements.

Even though the above mentioned issues can deter some companies to adapt their websites design to the cultural identity of each specific market, when companies undertake a comprehensive cultural analysis strategy, their ecommerce websites will become more profitable increasing at the same time, users’ satisfaction levels.

The local web

The local web