Visitors to your website shouldn't have to work very hard to find the information for which they are looking. However, as website owners, it is easy to forget that not everyone understands our product, be it widgets, jewelry, insurance, or health services, for example. Unfortunately, what may be obvious to you, may be confounding to your customers or potential customers. At this class, we will discuss the impact of usability on customers and how your website and website content should be crafted for your customers and/or potential customers, not for ourselves. Isn't it time to be more helpful to your customers and potential customers? Wouldn't you like to guide them through your website to help them find the information or products they want? Ready to stop making usability mistakes that might be costing you a return on your investment? Topics Covered What are "usability" standards and practices? Understanding your website visitors and what they are looking for Content layout and formatting Writing to engage visitors Online reading patterns & increasing readability Using images Search and navigation Making your content and website shareable via social media Contact Ally to sign up. (509) 252-5060

1. The Impact of Usability
on Your Website
Allyson Shoshana, Project Manager, Design Spike®, Inc

2. Agenda
■ What’s usability?
■ Understanding visitors to your website
■ Writing & formatting for the web
■ Images & layout
■ Search & navigation
■ Social media

3. What is Usability?
“Usability is all about making a website easier to use
for a customer…creating a usable website will make
customers happy…[and] will make you more money
as a website owner.”
Neil Patel – Crazy Egg

4. Why do you care?
■ 94% of people reject a website based on bad design
○ Only 6% of rejections were content related
■ 75% of people will leave your site for a competitors if they
can’t find what they want quickly
■ 88% will not return

5. Photo from NOTCOT.com

6. Photo from Optimum7.com
The Commandments of Website Usability
According to Will Hall

7. Thou shalt not forget mobile users
■ 45% of companies rely on desktop sites only
■ 25% of web users only use smart devices
■ Some say by 2014 mobile internet use will trump desktop
■ Local mobile searches will exceed desktop by 2015
■ Mobile traffic is increasing by 3.5% per month

8. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

9. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

10. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

11. Thou shalt make links obvious
■ Users scan pages for links “What can I do next?”
■ Use a color that is reserved for clickable links only
■ Change color of visited links
Bonus: use appropriate link text: “Download Map” vs “Click
Here”
Warning: don’t overuse keywords text as link text

12. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall
Watch this link!

13. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

14. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall
Nothing happened, did it?

15. Thou shalt use high-contrast text
■ Your content is your message; make it readable
■ Difficult reading > frustration > negative association with
brand
■ Not just elderly: poor screens, lighting
■ What does your site look like in greyscale?
Bonus 1: Backgrounds behind text: only when faded
Bonus 2: contrastrebellion.com

16. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

17. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

18. Thou shalt use clear navigation
■ Be conventional (seriously)
■ Be terse
■ Use your words, not your icons (mystery meat navigation)
■ Streamline (minimize items)
■ Highlight current nav item > reinforce user’s model of site
structure
Bonus: reinforce navigation with breadcrumbs, headings

19. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

20. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

21. Thou shalt not commit the sin of visual noise
pollution
■ Too long to find what you are looking for
■ Your customers will leave and shop elsewhere
■ Visitors get lost
■ Not scannable
■ Ugly

22. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

23. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

24. Thou shalt not veer from thy site’s
established typography
■ Too many fonts, too distracting
■ Not readable
■ Confuses visitors
■ Visitor cannot figure out what content is valuable and what is
not
Bonus: avoid “bad” fonts; don’t use display fonts in body text

25. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

26. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall
via Laura Jean Karr

27. So, what’s your website visitor
looking for?
Image via University Of Mexico

28. Ask Yourself:
■ Who’s your customer?
■ What do they want from you?
■ What service do you provide to them?
■ What do you want them to do once they get to your site?
■ How is your content helping them?
■ Is your website about you, or them?

29. Humans don’t read,
On the web that is
■ 79% scanned
■ 16% read
Why should you care?
Well………they’re ignoring most of what you think they are
reading.

30. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

31. We spend 69% of our time
staring at the left side of your
website
We spend 80% above the fold
(wherever that is, these days)

32. So what’s a website owner to do?
■ Important content goes first (paragraphs & sentences)
■ Skip the fluff - NO ONE READS IT
■ Capture their attention, fast
■ Don’t center text (this drives Will crazy)
■ Keep headers left

33. Are you writing for
the web, or for
yourself?
■ Visitors read less than
20% of the words
■ Higher literacy = more the
scanning, SNAP!
■ Lower literacy = more
plowing through the text

34. Formatting Content:
Use Headers and SubHeaders

35. Formatting Content:
Include Keywords in Headers or Bold Text

36. Formatting Content:
Use Numbered or Bulleted Lists

37. Formatting Content:
Use Significant Words in Headings

38. Formatting Content:
Use Images of High Quality

39. Formatting Content:
Images Control Where We Look

40. Formatting content is the new black
Tips to remember
■ Use H1, H2, H3 for headings, sub-headings
■ Include keywords in headings or bold (some of the time, use
restraint!)
■ Use numbered or bulleted lists
■ Omit words

41. Leverage Social Media with Your Website
■ Use social sharing buttons - make ‘em visible
■ Make your content shareable and easy to share - click to
tweet
■ Use social media where it makes sense
■ Set up Google+ profile and Rel+”Author” Tag
■ Use images people want to share

42. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

43. The 10 Commandments of Website
Usability According to Will Hall

44. Thanks!