Website Usability Guidelines

Support Your Brand

Follow these usability recommendations:

Branding on a Web site takes time, effort, and close attention to page design and layout.

Recommendations:

(1) Keep colors and typefaces consistent. Visitors should never click on an internal link in your site and wonder if they've left your Web site. Choose your colors and fonts carefully and use them consistently throughout the site.

(2) Keep page layout consistent. Use a Web site template to enforce a uniform page structure. Visitors should be able to predict the location of important page elements after visiting just one page in your site.

(3) Create a good tagline and use it on every page. A good tagline clearly and concisely explains your "value proposition" or what makes your site stand out from competing sites. It should be memorable and reinforce.

Provide for visitor feedback. Forms are critical to the success of e-commerce sites. Without forms, you can't have a shopping cart. Aany site usually needs at least one form to allow for user feedback.

Test your website on real users (Informal Usability Test). Remember that you're the designer so of course you effortlessly use the navigation system, love the content, and understand the value proposition. But now it's time to get user feedback - before your online users start sending it in.

It also gives you valuable answers to these questions:

(1) Do visitors enjoy using the site? If so, they'll stay longer and read more content.

(2) Do they understand the purpose of the site? If not, there's no compelling reason to return.

(3) Can they recover from errors? Usability testing is the best way to test how well your site search, sitemap, and forms. They should all work together to guide a visitor through the site.