Professional Website Usability

Part 1: Pay Now or Pay Later

Usability isn't necessarily a new term, but when it comes to how users interact with the Web, it takes on a whole new meaning. Web usability is evolving as we learn more and more about how our users interact with our online information, how they retrieve it and use it, how they want to move on our site, what they anticipate and what they expect within the realm of their experience.

The term 'usability' has historically involved testing how users actually get on a system and use it. With Web usability, I prefer to take it one step further and think of it in terms of how a user gets on a Web page and a) anticipates how to interact with it and b) actually interacts with it. This anticipation is what we need to test for along with use; it's the intuition and the logic involved in the Web experience that differentiates Web usability from other types of usability. Failing to rethink our approach to usability predisposes us to either success or failure—I don't know about you, but I prefer the success path. Web users are a fickle group; let's face it, if you don't anticipate what they want, give them what they want, how they want it and when they want it, you can forget the bookmark; they're not returning.

Think of Web usability as a 'pay now or pay later' proposition. If you don't check in with users early in the development process, you run the risk that you won't meet their needs when you launch the site. When you realize their needs haven't been met, you have to go back and rethink your whole approach, rehire the web developers and get them refocused on the project so they can redevelop the site. The terms, 'rethink', 'rehire', 'refocus' and 'redevelop' should be conjuring up visions of dollar signs for you, not to mention the fact that your brand, image and credibility were damaged in the process of launching a site users weren't able to use.

Testing for usability is a choice, not a requirement, and it is often the first step in the development process that management will scratch if time is running short. The next time you approach your web project, consider using the web usability strategy I developed to understand the scope of testing usability, how you could easily administer a test session, who you should test and what you want to test for. It may be less burdensome than you think!

Your Usability Strategy

Below are some considerations for your Web usability strategy:

• Goals of the study: What do you want to achieve with this study?
• Criteria: What do you want to test and what are you going to test for?
• Participants: Who will you invite to participate and why did you choose them?
• Resources: Who will need to be involved (consider if observers will be needed to document the participants' movements -- this normally involves one participant and one observer working together)
• Timeframe: When should this study take place to be meaningful for the project? (dates and times of day)
• ROI: Will there be a return on investment if this study goes forward? For example, if it costs $1,000 to conduct the study, would you save an anticipated $15,000 in rework and redevelopment if it's not done? Will you gain any competitive advantage with your end result if the quality is higher than a competitor's because you performed the study?
• Cost: How much will it cost to administer this study?

With this Web strategy, you'll be in a good position to seek approval from management to continue with your study. Your management will appreciate the time you took up front to understand what this study will entail and how much it is expected to cost.

Web developers, just like the application and software developers of the past, are too close to their projects and too close to the terminology, labels, navigation, look/feel, context, text and messages to truly know what users want. They've taken their best guess and used whatever knowledge they've gathered during their Web development career to make critical decisions and assumptions about users. Put a check in the process to validate the approach and confirm that the direction chosen was the right one and all the elements on the Webpage will be meaningful for the user.

With the 'pay now or pay later' philosophy, you'll want to pay now while your brand, image and credibility are still in tact. Paying later after the user has had an awful experience compounds both your financial and reputation costs and the user experience cannot be salvaged.