In this article, we will cover the most important issue in building a website. Specifically, usability. In other words, we will try to explain how to avoid mistakes in terms of page convenience that can scare off your visitors. By learning to use the space allocated for displaying the page properly and paying attention to every detail, you will not annoy your website’s visitor, but instead – win them over. Of course, someone who knows this will never face the question of usability.
Table of contents
Content plays the main role in your project, but you also shouldn’t forget how this content is presented to the user. If useful information takes up less than 25 percent of the total page area, or the user has to load pages each time to finish reading the information they are interested in, which the site’s author decided to split into many pieces, then in the end the visitor is unlikely to come here again. Our task is to not only keep the user, but also make them want to come back here again. The page should be clearly divided into several areas – the area of useful information, the navigation area, and the area for ads, if you can’t do without it. Ideally – ads should be removed, or the area allocated for ads should not exceed 10% of the entire page area. In turn, the navigation area should not overlap the information display area, and vice versa. This way, you need to show the user as clearly as possible what is where and keep this style throughout the entire site. Only in this case will the visitor feel comfortable while browsing your site.
Size
The best sites are fast sites. In other words – your site’s traffic is directly tied to the size of the pages being loaded. Compress your graphics (within reason, of course) – and you will increase traffic. Everything is quite simple. These are not our conclusions, but data scientifically proven by specialists in the US. Don’t get carried away with overly heavy graphics. The longer the page takes to load – the more users will leave without waiting for the load to finish. The maximum possible limit for a single page – 100 kb. Ideally it is 33-34 kb. These numbers aren’t made up either. A 34-kilobyte page loads in about one second on a high-speed T1 line, or about 10 seconds on a good analog connection. Our advice to you – a reasonable limit is 60-70 kilobytes, 100 – the limit. If your page sizes exceed this limit – don’t expect high traffic and long sessions on your site.
Design and readability
Go with a fixed site width. Don’t let the fact that on a large screen with high resolution the site won’t be displayed across the full screen area confuse you. Sites without a fixed width are much worse.
If the visitor can’t read the text, everything else doesn’t make much sense. Readability should be the deciding factor. The text and the background the text is written on should have maximum contrast. This is why most serious websites stick to the standard. White text on a black background (negative) is also perceived well, but in this case, this scheme contributes to distracting the reader’s attention, which slows reading somewhat
Conclusion
In summary, it should be said that usability, meaning the convenience of a website, largely depends on the simplicity of the site itself. You shouldn’t create any complex navigation or information layout schemes.
