5 Tips to Improve Website Usability

Improving website usability is really important to maximise the enjoyment of the site for users. If you're unsure of what usability is then you can read more from the king of Usability Jacob Neilsen.

In short, good usability allows you to have a successful site by increasing its' effectiveness allowing the user a good experience and smooth interaction.

I was looking online for a pair of shoes the other day and came across a site that made me stick around just to see how annoying it was! It didn't take long to get my goat. As you will see I've got great taste ;)

http://www.pointerfootwear.com

This site has some great shoes to browse through but a number of usability issues that should be addressed.

5 Tips To Improve Website Usability

#1 - Alt Tags on Imagery

To help those people who are blind or have impaired vision it's good to apply alt tags to your imagery. Within the alt tag you should describe the content of the image. Try to keep the description short and meaningful. A picture of a particular shoe for example should say more than just "Brand X", a more meaningful tag would be "Brand X in white" or "Brand X in white side view".

The alt tag should also be part of your basic SEO strategy.

#2 - Title Attribute on Imagery

The title attribute is a great way to add extra information to an image and acts similarly to tool tips. It should work in tandem with your alt tag, so an example to fit with the above alt tag would be "Brand X in white sizes 6-12".

#3 - Poor menu system

The menu system on this particular site is bunched and not very clear. Along with some of the imagery it herds the logo into a corner and doesn't let it breathe.

I've done a very quick redesign that helps to give the logo some exposure whilst at the same time clarifying the menu system.

On product pages the system becomes even more confusing.

I've only gone down one level but even this simple redesign makes the menu that bit easier to use. Changing the title around also makes clear what the page is about.

#4 - No Basic Details - Size Range

To help your customers in making a judgment on a product it's good to give them at least some basic information. On this particular site when you click through to a particular shoe all you are given is some further imagery.

It's great to be able to see the shoe from many different angles but to save the user time some details such as size range, brief shoe description and RRP would be nice. This is not an ecommerce site but these details might persuade the user to purchase the item after reading this description.

Delaying the user from finding out this info might give them enough time to be distracted by another brand and possibly a purchase.

#5 - Optimise Images

The home page is full of some nice shots of their shoe collection for the year but having tried the site on varying connections it does take a while to download all the imagery.

Users can get tired of watching tons of images flick into life and this potentially could lead to them leaving your site.

Less is more in some cases and while it's nice to know they sell a good range of shoes it's sometimes better to do that with text and less imagery that loads quicker.

To aid your SEO of products make sure your naming conventions are good. This particular site has image file names like "image_imgShoes_4_image.jpg" which means zip to a search engines crawler.

Again this should be part of your basic SEO strategy.

What else could be improved? Do comment I'd like to know your views.

Still you can't deny they do some great shoes, I'm about to make a trip to Carnaby Street to go get me a pair :)