A big mistake that many people make is confusing usability with accessibility. Not only are the two very different, but the trend seems to be that one is considered less important than the other. Although both should be taken seriously, it is true that many of the ideals surrounding accessibility still apply to usability, and vice versa.

Optimizing the usability of a site will help make it more accessible, or at least provide a better framework to build on. If your broader audience finds the site difficult to use, it will almost certainly be problematic for people with disabilities or learning difficulties. Similarly, the degree of consideration that goes into addressing accessibility is equally valid when it comes to usability.

put the user first

If you remove all the fancy stuff from web design, ultimately the pages are built for people to use. Forget flashing every Flash trick you can muster to your repertoire or bombarding people’s browsers with bandwidth-busting images, and you’re left with the best content delivery service you can offer. Before you even start to brainstorm or start thinking about getting Dreamweaver up and running, you should be clear that usability is about putting the needs of the user first. Remember that designing anything from shoes to sites is judged on the performance of the final product.

This will help you accomplish one of the most important stages in most design processes and especially in software engineering: requirements elicitation. Most professional new media agencies will already be familiar with this procedure and will use it to establish a stable understanding of what the user expects to see, and the success of the project depends on following it. Whether you’re tasked with building a site for a specific client or hoping to launch something that will drive traffic more directly, learning what end-user expectations are will be an essential exercise.

Obtaining requirements

The key point to remember about understanding user requirements is that you are unlikely to get them right the first time. This means that a constant flow of communication throughout the design process is critical to getting as close as possible to your expectations. Talking to users, recording what they say, and trying to pinpoint exactly what they mean is the only sure way to meet their needs.

It’s also important to note that the people you’re designing for don’t necessarily know the kind of “developer language” you’d be comfortable with. This is where the production of graphical diagrams or descriptive case studies can be used effectively to represent how you see the project. Navigation flowcharts, example sitemaps, and perhaps data flow diagrams for eCommerce solutions are all good ways to present complex information without baffling others with technical jargon.
Likewise, there’s no reason you can’t achieve a shared direction the way visuals go with page mockups. Digital flat drawings of possible template designs can be presented and analyzed, before a period of prototyping more sophisticated page elements, interfaces and navigation structures begins.

Professional Help

If you’re not too interested in doing generalized usability studies yourself, or perhaps realize that it’s not feasible, you can always rely on the services of others.

Professional consultancies or specialized agencies are common and offer a range of complete solutions covering all major processes. They will also usually give your site a preliminary evaluation to determine if it really requires the full usability treatment and how best to accomplish it all. then it all comes down to identifying what needs and goals drive the website, or establishing what it is expected to achieve. This can lead to a detailed analysis of what the target demographic will be, so that a cross section of the audience group can be studied.

Typically, a sample of ‘typical users’ will be asked to attend test sessions that will observe participants as they experience the site. This can range from simply asking them to freely browse the content for a certain period of time, to setting them certain tasks and scenarios.

While they are encouraged to ‘think out loud’ at all times, their comments are monitored and recorded using sophisticated tracking software or by video. Designers are encouraged to attend sessions and hear how users perceive the site and perhaps what improvements they may suggest. At the end, all participants are asked to submit their general impressions of the site during in-depth interview sessions. All the findings are then compiled into detailed reports that will form the basis for any future design reviews and new projects that arise from the findings.

Conducting user surveys

When gathering a sample of your users isn’t a realistic option, there are other ways to get feedback. Many sites will include email addresses or contact forms for visitors to submit feedback, but this does not guarantee that you will receive the kind of valuable feedback that you want. it may be more useful to provide electronic questionnaires that will measure user opinion more effectively.

Using a specialized program will allow you to publish sophisticated interactive surveys quickly and easily. The benefit here is that the results can be recorded on a server before more detailed statistical analysis can be processed and interpreted when managing any practical improvements. There are some off-the-shelf software solutions that will remotely assess user actions as they occur in real time. This kind of approach should be clearly made known to visitors before they participate, as tracking their behaviors covertly would compromise areas of data protection law and would certainly lead to mistrust if discovered.

However, some interesting facts related to areas of the site or the actual interface would be revealed from the way different people approach the content. By simply tracking link paths or cursor activity, you could determine how navigation was perceived and perhaps how effective visual cues such as menus, buttons, and anchors are in directing your audience’s actions.

This provides one of the most realistic images of user perception, because the subject is likely to behave as they would naturally when casually browsing the Web. When in more stringent ‘lab’ conditions, they may feel pressured by the environment or the presence of an examiner, or feel conscious of the time it takes to perform. It would also have an adverse effect if they were to expect to use hardware, peripherals, operating systems, or navigation software with which they are unfamiliar.

By making judgments about how typical visitors interact with the site in their own homes or workplaces, it will help differentiate how the novice or experienced user fare without interruption.