Question

On your first day on a new IT job, your boss gives you this assignment:

Because you completed coursework on usability, you are responsible for evaluating the usability of the company website. Include hard data in your report. You are required to use this definition of usability:

The usability of a system or any product is a key factor for all the organizations determining that everyone is having a good user experience and easy to use. In the cutting-edge technology, usability is often used in relation to software applications for better visual consistency and a clearly defined process to accomplish tasks.

Describe how you measure usability based on this (and only this) definition.

Answer 1

Answer

Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word "usability" also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process.

5quality components are there

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

In addition to content, we have web development and design considerations for usability. These are (mainly) outlined as follows:

Server

Servers used to host websites are a usability consideration. Two major factors to consider when selecting servers are:

• Speed - Google ranks by usability to some extent. How quickly your page loads is one of the ranking factors — so, speed to load is also a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) concern. A website that’s slow to load and slow to respond turns users off. Servers influence how fast a page will load depending on their capacity, specialization, etc. Naturally, it’s not just servers that influence the speed of a page — the web designer has a lot of influence over this in the way he/she serves images, graphics, etc., too.
• Downtime - During downtime, a website is completely inaccessible. It’s fair to say that most websites will experience the occasional moment of downtime when a server falls offline. However, some suffer more than most; choosing a reliable server enables the delivery of a better user experience. One bad experience might have a user shrug and come back later. But more than one bad experience and that user may go somewhere else.

HTML

Focus the HTML you use on delivering a better user experience. While, to date, only mobile websites benefit from user experience ranking on Google, it’s probably fair to infer that in the future this will also be true on all platforms. Some key considerations for your HTML include:

• Use ALT tags - ALT tags are used in conjunction with images; they let you convey additional information about the image that isn’t displayed as part of the main text. ALT tags assist with indexing in search engines (they let you tell the search engine about the content of the image). They also help with screen-reader narration for visually impaired users.
• 404 Not Found Page - Broken links happen, particularly in large websites. While ideally, you should test all links on a regular basis and repair any broken ones, it’s a good idea to have a plan for when users encounter a broken link. That plan is the “404 Not Found Page” — a well-designed 404 page will try to assist the user in returning to a positive experience. The default 404 page isn’t helpful in this respect. Clunky and primitive, it gives users the impression that they’ve come to the end of an escalator that isn’t attached to a floor. They don’t want to fall off and land on an archaic message. As a designer, never lose sight of that. That little courtesy goes a long way.

Visual Factors

The visual factors that impact the overall user experience are the factors where, normally, you the designer have the most control. That means paying careful attention to:

• Font Size Color - Choose fonts that are easy to read. That means high levels of contrast with the background and font sizes large enough for users to read easily. If some of your user base is elderly or visually impaired, make fonts larger.
• Branding - Branding, in particular the company logo, helps users know where they are online. Based on eye movement patterns, the ideal place for the logo is the top-left corner of the screen. This is where users who read from left to right are most likely to look when first arriving on the site.
• Layout Colors - Colors need to be consistent in order to convey branding and also to develop an aesthetic appeal. In addition, they must deliver readability. Often, they need to convey hierarchy of information, too.
• Navigation - For users to get the most from a website, they need to get from point A (the entry point) to point B (where they want to be) as quickly and easily as possible. That means providing useful navigation systems, including (for larger websites) search functions, to facilitate that transition.
• Content - The web designer may or may not be responsible for creating the website copy, but there are design elements in the way you display that copy for user experiences:
• Headings - Organize content into manageable chunks through the use of headings, sub-headings, etc. This means developing a scheme for consistent display of each type of heading throughout the website, ensuring a consistent experience as users navigate around the site.
• Paragraphs - Make paragraphs clear and easily recognizable to help prevent the user from being overwhelmed by a “wall of text”. You can also apply Gestalt principles to paragraphs to help better illustrate the relationships between blocks of content.

Website Usability Tools

Testing your website is easy, thanks to a host of tools. Many are free; some are freemium, others premium. Get one that works for your website, then let it gather the data about usability. Many let you test on your existing usership; you can tell from the data what they’re experiencing, what’s going right and not-so right. Here’s a list of some:

Usabilla is another usability testing tool that can also provide information based on actual usage of your current site.

WebPage FX is a tool for testing the readability of content on a website.

Pingdom offers an insight into speed of response from your website.

Conclusion

Usability refers to how easily a user interacts with a website or product. It comes under the heading of UX design, but is not the whole story of user experience design. In usability, we designers have to focus on three aspects in particular:

• Users should find it easy and become proficient when using a design interface.
• They should be able to achieve their goal easily through using that design.
• They should be able to learn the interface easily, so that return visits are just as, if not more, easy.

We should analyze our web design when determining usability, taking into account everything from accessibility and usefulness of content to credibility and designing content users will enjoy. That means thinking ahead. Who are your users? Might they have trouble reading your text? Can you make them smile or laugh by adopting a fun tone (e.g., edument—entertainment and education—is useful when teaching)? Users will want to feel reassured that they are navigating securely. Make them feel so.

You also should consider the realities of the web. Finding a reliable server for your site that loads quickly is crucial. At the HTML level, you should use ALT tags and design a helpful catch page in case a link is broken.

Visual factors, including layout colors and content formatting are important, too. Having a good-looking site is all very well, but can users navigate easily?

Finally, test, test, and test. A plethora of website usability tools exist. Never underestimate the value of testing from an early stage. By working out where users click, for example, you’ll be well on track to learning their ways and how usable your site is.