I guess there’s nothing easier for a web designer than to isolate himself from a visitor. To drown in the design process and forget that the site will be viewed by number of people who will judge it not in the same way as he would.
The fact is that visitors categorize or remember sites based on how easy it was for them to find the information they were looking for, how pleasurable the experience was and whether they actually found what they came for.
So in order to improve your design skills place yourself in visitors shoes, judge other and your sites as well, browse them consciously and develop a habit of analyzing sites against their usability.
But how do you do that?
By asking those 5 simple questions you should be able to tell very quickly whether the site is successful.
1. Can I understand the purpose of the site in the first couple of seconds?
Upon landing on a site, if it’s designed well you should be able to tell it’s purpose in seconds. You should very quickly be able to say what the company does and what it wants to offer you through the site. If this is executed poorly you will find yourself wandering your eyes on the page looking for a clue to what is going on. And in many cases if you don’t find it quick enough you will leave.
2. Can I navigate through the site instantly after landing on it or do I have to stop and think before doing that?
In other words, is the navigation clear and self explanatory or do you have to search for it.
The best example are sites which place the navigation at the bottom of the page, underneath the content. Users actually have to scroll down the entire content to access it. This is an unnecessary step forcing the user to do so where they should be able to access the exact information they are looking for.
3. Can I tell where I am on the site at all times?
After a while of browsing and going deeper into the site, can you still tell where you are? What is the signposting on the site like? Look at the navigation and see if the page you are currently on is highlighted in any way.
If not, are there any other signposts marking your location, breadcrumbs (the “you are here:…” links), texts informing you where you are, page title containing the name of the page. Check also whether hyperlinks that you clicked in the text body offer any indication that you already used them.
4. Am I being asked to complete tasks and if so, how clearly they are communicated to me?
Are there any calls to action (‘click here to…’) on the site. There doesn’t have to be any but if you come across one, how well was it laid out to you? A good example here is a login screen, or any registration forms. How well is it described how your password should be structured? Is it all there or did you have to find out that a password must contain numbers from an error message.
5. If I choose wrong, is it easy to go back or correct my mistake?
Make a mistake, deliberately even though you knew what to include in the menu type something else. See how the error message is communicated to you, how well it is explained and whether it is easy to correct your error.
There are many design solutions that can be implemented to solve those problems. There are also many other aspects of a website that can cause it to fail (wrong content, images disturbing the image, non-readable text and many others) although as long as your visitor can answer those questions and his answers are positive your site will be considered easy to use and on a straight road to be successful.