I’ve spoken repeatedly of what I like to call “the visitor experience” – what happens when someone visits a website, and most definitely from their viewpoint. How THEY experience the website.
That really breaks down into three key factors:
1. Interest
2. Trust
3. Usability
If a website doesn’t build interest from the first moment, and on every page – your visitor is gone.
If it doesn’t build trust in the visitor, he will never take action. And that, after all, is why the website is there, one way or another, to bring about or facilitate action.
But all that will come to nothing unless the site is designed, built, and adjusted to maximize USABILITY.
What is usability? It is anything and everything that make the site easy to use and easy for the visitor to do what the visitor wants to do. I’ve written many blog posts on this but now let’s tie them all in a neat little bundle and put a label on it: Usability.
Clarity and simplicity in your main menu. Telling the visitor simply, directly and immediately on your home page what you are about. Provide alternate methods of navigating a website, including internal text links so visitors can follow their interest. Page layout that is basically the same throughout the site.
These and many other aspects of your site contribute to – or detract from – its usability.
To evaluate your site’s usability, imagine yourself someone who has never been to your site, and (perhaps) is a bit of a novice on the Internet.
How easy will it be for them to use your site. USE your site. That’s what you want the visitor to do, to use your site to accomplish THEIR purposes.
Only then will your site accomplish yours.