Five by Five

written by Mark Weeden, Account Director, Five by Five

For many the term ‘usability’ conjures up images of a dark art, complex website revamps and a massive bill at the end of it. In reality it can be as simple, or as in-depth, as you want to make it.

It may have gained column inches in the past few years but the roots of usability can be found in World War Two, and in the field of ergonomics. The US military wanted to make their planes more ‘usable’ for their pilots, and even then most recommendations were just plain, common sense.

Steve Krug, author of the essential Usability guide “Don’t make me think�, believes the title of his book is the first law of usability. In essence a usable website should be obvious and self-explanatory. Each and every visitor to the site should instinctively just “get it� – what it is and how to use it without having to think about it.

In its simplest form this could be as quick as reviewing the terms you use in your navigation. In a recent usability project we undertook for Island Cruises, it was identified that the term ‘Itinerary’ had little to no meaning to site users, a quick change of the navigation from ‘Cruise itineraries’ to ‘Cruise holidays’ and the confusion is removed and the site is instantly more usable.

Too often we get caught up in industry jargon or internal terms, which mean nothing to a site visitor.

From our experience the results of a usability review speak for themselves. We’ve recently seen a 200% increase in transactions (YOY) following a usability review. You can’t argue with that!

Try looking at your website with a fresh pair of eyes – is it really as obvious and self-explanatory as you think it is?

Useful Links >
www.amazon.co.uk/book – ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ on Amazon
www.alistapart.com – A List Apart
www.useit.com – Jakob Nielsen’s Website

To contact Mark click here >>

taken from the ‘Power to the People’ Edition of the Five by Five Review, November 2007