What is meant by a web design usable?.
Usability is an empirical value, since results are obtained through a test conducted on a sample of users. These values obtained are neither good nor bad, but depend on the purpose that we have set or what you’re comparing. It is therefore to assess whether the web design is valid for the purpose for which it was constructed.
Does your web design usable?, To answer this question we must evaluate several factors, separately and together, since each and every one of them must be taken into account if we really want our website to be usable. To evaluate the usability of a website, we verify the accessibility, identity, navigability and content.
ACCESSIBILITY
Accessibility is the degree to which everyone can use an object, visit a location or access a service, regardless of their technical or physical.
When we measure the accessibility of a website, we measured:
* Charge Time’s website: obviously not all have the same connection speeds, a website can make endless heavy load with a corresponding neglect of the user.
The weight of a page consists of images, html code and the files it calls, such as CSS or JS.
Try it maximizes the size of our images (gif and jpg as appropriate), use a good code XHTML, CSS fully optimize the JS and use only necessary for the page.
The ideal is to bring the weight to 100kb, anyway depends on the type of website that we designed. The charging time must be reasonable to the content type we are showing, and in any case not exceed 10 seconds.
It is also very important in the case of the pages in flash, use good preloads do not suffer for the user and above all not to lose.
* Make a readable web page: the contrast is very important when making a page readable. It is not only a stylish design make has to be functional. I use a lower contrast for a headline, but what I can do is put a low contrast text, because this will mean even on some monitors, the user can not read, and generally cause fatigue to read.
The font size and line spacing are also equally important. Ideally, it is also able to offer the possibility to scale the font size, but if well designed, it is not essential.
Whitespace favor us, help us steer a course of reading and allow us to “air” and the page to promote their reading and consultation.
And of course, nothing “fair”, there is nothing more stressful than trying to read a website where everything wants to stand out from the rest.
* Plug-in, bad thing: we can not force our user to download an application to view our content, first, because many times not to trust, and second because that will make you lose much time. Unless it’s something very specific and desired by the user, the vast majority choose to leave the site.
If you have no choice, we should at least give the option to skip that item and continue browsing.
* Tags on images: All images on our website must be labeled “Alt” with a text description of what they represent. Besides helping the user, we will help Google to find us better.
* We use a 404: when a page does not exist, the server shows a page of type “404 Not Found”, this is a quick way to lose to a user. The ideal is to design a good and attractive 404 page, inviting the user to browse through our website.
* No pop-ups or new windows: there is considerable evidence that the use of pop-horror to the user, there are many ways to get those files without the need for desktop full of open windows. The user uses the “back or back” to navigate, open new windows is the only thing that causes that are hidden on each other. Do not worry, if you like your content back to back.
IDENTITY
At all times it is necessary that you know who we are. This provides confidence in our content.
* The logo: the brand that say about us, always in a prominent place and visible.
* Describe the site: in terse sentences, what is this and what you can do and find here?
* Home in a click: the home is a reference to the user, anytime, quickly, should be able to access it.
* Contact: sometimes the user wants to be able to contact you, facilítaselo as possible.
NAVIGATION
We often think that everything is clear, then we are surprised that when we teach the web, our friends Blog can not reach the site we want to see, this is because the web is not well designed. It is not nice to have a final result, dramatic, good design is also and above all, is capable of making Web content to be easily viewed by the user, ie to be able to navigate smoothly to discover the web. This could also be called the information architecture.
There can be no airworthiness manual, each page is a world, so if we can is to try to follow these guidelines:
* Logo with link to the homepage: the user usually always looks like instead of heading home.
* Navigation menu visibly: usually the best place is the horizontal bar at the top of the web. If we realize this is the place where we learned to use any program (Word, …) and is where we find it easier to navigate.
If the menu has submenus, it is easy to distinguish.
* Clear messages: the holders of the menus must be clear and concise. In general also recommended not to over 7 main links in a menu, number in principle more than enough for any website.
* Links easy to identify: do not forget that the role of a link is pressed it, let us try to always see clearly, underline for text and text to the button.
CONTENT
Obviously the most important part of the web is the most we spoil you. The way to show you’ve already seen in the preceding paragraphs, but in regard to its composition must not forget:
* Use the right labels: to define the headings, subheadings, paragraphs … In addition to helping the reading we are defining a time all SEO work.
* Use CSS for ranking: by colors, font sizes, backgrounds of layers, we make everything more readable. If good content hierarchy greatly facilitate the work of the user to choose when he wants to consult the texts. A very common use but not very helpful is to put up the pictures.
Using bold, emphasis, all these figures help the reading of a content.
* Use url’s “friendly” easy to remember and descriptive of the content.
Well, ultimately these are the points that I as a designer take into account when making my website designs, as I always say, the best ally is the common sense and something that usually comes well is take to your friends @ sy teach anywhere. Observe how they move through it and give you the answer to whether your site is usable or not.