Usability is a qualitative assessment of how easy a website interface is to use.
Usability includes the following five Core Components:
Learnability – How easily can users complete basic tasks on their initial visit?
Efficiency – Upon learning the design, how fast can users perform tasks?
Memorability – How easily can users perform tasks after extended inactivity?
Errors – How many mistakes to users make?
Satisfaction – Do users enjoy using the site?
In addition to the above five core components, usability extends to include Utility, which refers to the site design’s overall functionality; namely, does the web site do what users need?
Why is Usability important?
On the Internet, usability is essential to a site’s success. If it is difficult to use, people will leave your site. If the homepage fails to clearly describe what your company offers, people will leave. If users get lost, they leave. In the case of an e-commerce site, poor usability often results in poor sales.
How can we help?
Andrew Lehman Design can conduct a Usability Assessment of your site to help identify areas that may prove problematic to your site’s visitors. Through a series of tests, we will evaluate your site’s usability based on the following five Key Areas:
Interface Design/Layout
Site Structure/Navigation
Page Load/Page Bloat
Legibility/Page Flow
Code Level/Externals
How do we test?
While many methods exist for studying usability, the most basic (and the method we use) is called User Testing, which consists of three major components:
Our in house staff, with diverse backgrounds, offers a model user test group.
We ask the user group to perform repetitive tasks with the site.
We observe their behavior, where they succeed, and where they have problems using the site, with the group supplying crucial feedback on their experience.
