Author: WAA Member Irina Romanova, Web Analyst, Rogers Communications Inc., Canada
May, 2011

1. Usability is a new field

Usability has existed since cavemen started working on their stone tools to get them right, i.e. usable. Whenever humans invented anything new they tended to make it in a way that would help them achieve their goals. Web Usability started its development the moment we recognized the web. The closest ancestor of Web Usability is Usability of Software Applications that includes Application Architecture and Graphic User Interface (GUI).

2. Usability is not serious and is not significant for business profitability

Better usability is directly related to increased revenue. In addition, some of the proven advantages of good usability are reduced development/maintenance and support costs. Strengthening web application usability encourages user adoption and contributes to ROI. A bad user experience can be extremely costly. Behavioral design is key to e-commerce success. Users who find it hard to locate a product or successfully use the checkout process will likely go elsewhere and often do not return. “Easy to place an order” – this is the main reason why people are shopping on the web, ahead of “large selection” and “lower prices”. According to Forrester Research, e-commerce sites can lose up to 50% of potential sales if customers have difficulty finding merchandise. …and 40% will not come back.

Usability methods play a significant role in revenue growth. Slight improvements in usability can increase revenues by 10% - 35%. Simply making product information easy to locate can increase sales by as much as 225%.

The importance of usability in increasing ROI cannot be underestimated as typically it doubles the conversion rate.

3. Usability is not a science

Being scientific means relying on observation and measurement rather than intuition.  Web analytics controlled experiments, case studies, multivariate testing, behavioral analysis and surveys are all used to make better decisions in usability.

Most theoretical and methodological inspiration comes to usability from psychology. This includes research methods from social and experimental psychology, sensation, motivation, emotion and perception.

Other fields playing a role in usability development include social sciences such as anthropology and sociology.

4. Usability cannot be objectively measured and analyzed

A website cannot be considered usable simply because an ‘expert’ says it is or because the website was created following checklists and guidelines.

A website becomes usable when there is evidence that users find it easy and fast to complete their tasks, errors are rare, key business metrics report an increase in conversions and surveys are showing visitors’ positive attitude.

Web Analytics is a powerful tool for providing evidence of web usability effectiveness - evidence that can be precisely measured and scientifically analyzed.

5. Usability is Graphic/Web Design

It is very common to confuse web usability with good web design. “If visitors do not like a website then let’s impress them with graphics…”

Although it is important that a website be nicely designed, graphic design has little to do with web usability and changing the graphics most likely will not significantly improve usability or increase conversions. To be usable a website has to provide visitors with a good user experience and call them to action. From a visitor’s perspective the website has to allow them to find what they are looking for and complete their tasks with ease and without delays.

The bottom line is – web usability is the ability of a visitor to successfully use a website. Impressive graphics cannot make a web application usable if it is not built for usability.

6. Usability is a matter of opinion or taste

Taste is an aesthetic rather than a functional consideration, while web usability is a matter of success in web functionality.

For example, giving self-explanatory names to menu items and buttons is not a matter of opinion or taste.

Everything has to make sense and the majority of not-technical users have to understand a website’s “language” and predict its behavior.

Even color schemes and layouts can be scientifically optimized based on usability studies, research and analysis, independently of opinion and taste and be able to serve the needs of a majority and variety of visitors.

7. Usability can be reviewed after development and later optimized by “trial and error”

It is a known fact by usability aware companies that it costs 10-100 times more to correct usability issues after development as compared to cases when usability was addressed from the start of the development process.

Usability has to be evaluated as a critical component of web applications together with architecture, technology, design and functionality.

To be able to conduct this evaluation, a business has to start from outlining business and users goals and creating a plan to guide visitors through the process of completing their tasks and building a painless and enjoyable experience.

This has to include the ability of the application to quickly answer a visitor’s questions with easy explanations and then clearly present them with their options. Some of the methods of early stage usability evaluation include creating and analyzing personas as users’ representatives and conducting activity analysis.

To maximize usability and move it to acceptable level systems require incorporating user feedback as part of the analysis for ongoing usability improvements.

8. Usability issues can be resolved by brainstorming

Although usability is relatively intuitive and not overly complicated, it requires relevant education and experience in web development, web design, marketing and web analysis in order to conduct productive usability testing and to develop working recommendations that can quickly and positively affect website conversions.

Usability is fundamentally not a matter of taste and producing valuable usability recommendations requires knowledge of usability standards, case studies, usability principals and trends.

9. Usability can be separated from accessibility

To build really usable web applications, developers always have to keep accessibility in mind, as accessibility improvements positively affect the usability of web applications especially when addressing people with limited abilities or computer literacy or when using different devices and technologies.

Goals, approaches, and guidelines of usability and accessibility are closely related and overlapped. That is why it is vital to address them together during the development stages.

10. Usability is Branding

This conception has been advanced by those who see usability simply as a marketing tool which indicates a lack of understanding of how these considerations differ.

Beginning with definitions, Usability is the ease of use and learnability of a human-made object.

Conversely, Branding is a process of creating a brand as an identity of a specific product, service, or business.

While, the visitors’ experience may have a great impact on a brand, it is possible to develop a brand that has nothing to do with a usable product or, alternatively, to create a very usable website without attaching it to a specific brand.

Comments

[Al Wightman]

Irina,

I really like your piece and totally support your views on usability in particular on performing usability during the development process rather than after. I suspect this is one of the hardest arguments to win when budgets are being stretched already. I also believe that because businesses are so keen to launch a site within a tight time schedule they are often willing to jettison some crucial stages in the development process to get there quicker.

The only small point I would challenge you on is to do with the term web design. When I use the term web design it is not just about the graphic design of the interface but a process which requires a number of skills including UX, UI, graphic design, copywriting, appreciation of the limitations of the platform you are designing for e.g. browser, hardware platform (desktop, mobile, gaming platform, digital TV) and usablity. They all play a part in the web design process and often many other things as well.

Cheers,

Al

[Web Designing]

It's not just about style, or creativity, it's about how all the elements of web design are mixed, arranged and presented.

[Stephen Dow]

I applaude your article. This is surely a very overlooked factor in conversion. I would like to mention that we use another analytical tool to test web designs for maximizing the user experience, on-site time and conversion - based on real-time mapping of eye movement, scroller motion, clicks, and page scrolling data (all based on heat mapping technologies).

So far we have seen that it does help. We generally use it when a site is live - since existing sites may only need be tweaked to work much better. We test new sites "live" as well (because we have no other way to use this tool). In any event, after a predetermined number of visits, we make changes to various image and text elements on a given page based on the heat mapping data. Then, we test again. We are learning more and more as we use this approach, and we feel it does have merit.

Has anyone used this approach before in web design and development? We sure would love opinions on best practices, etc. We are tweaking our old site now, and are finding that what we thought was a terrible site, was not horrific. We plan to launch our own business site as an HTML 5 site in a couple of months. This should be an interesting exercise as well.

[Irina Romanova]

Thank you very much for your valuable comments and I apologize for the delayed response.
In the article I used the often misinterpreted term “web design” to refer to the graphic presentation of a website but I agree that this may need further explanation. I’ve often found that website managers confuse it with usability assuming that good looks will do the trick while forgetting about the behavioral aspects. Making a good impression does matter but if the “packaging” does not include a good user experience this will not work for business profitability.
Responding to Stephen’s concerns, undoubtedly when you are rebuilding your website you have a learning advantage provided to you by the previous version. This nevertheless underscores the unfortunate plight of so many online businesses for whom the consideration of usability from the start of the development process is still a dream. Too often we build “the idea” first and then try to analyze and improve user experience or, worse, apply quick fixes.
As with most web analysts I know, I do not attribute a primary value to the tracking of eye movement or scroller motion because we find that more severe issues are much easier to track. Perhaps once your website is really functional it may be advisable to analyze visitor psychology and effectively use heat mapping technologies.

[Design Agency]

#8 and #9 are pretty good points, and need to be noted down by any amateur designer in the industry who is looking to cut teeth into the hardcore professional sector!