A comprehensive website usability review is tantamount to successful online business practices.   Although millions of websites offer users potentially valuable information, goods, services and entertainment, according to recent studies, most sites are too difficult or frustrating for users to operate. Unfortunately, there are endless examples of websites with usability problems all over the net.  The bottom line. A user will desert the site, if dissatisfied.  Chances of them ever returning?  Slim to none.

According to Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, at least 90% of all commercial websites are tough to use. If a website is difficult to use, people leave.  If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers, people leave.  If users get lost on a website, they leave and so on.  “Even though 90% of sites are bad, users don’t spend 90% of their time at bad sites,” says Nielsen.  “People only visit a bad site once but become loyal users of the good sites.” One study showed that e-commerce sites lose close to half their potential sales because users cannot use the site.  Additionally, the study showed that the average site could increase its current sales by 79% with better usability.   

Usability is about the user.  If the user feels that interfacing with the site was an easy and pleasurable experience and that he achieved his goals then the site successfully achieved its usability goals as well. Measuring the quality of a user’s experience when interacting with a website will not only gain new customers, but also enlist returning customers as well.

While there are many methods for usability review, the most basic and valuable is User Testing.  Usability rests on a company’s ability to consider the outsider’s perspective, since customers are always outsiders.  A company knows its site intimately and understands exactly how it works.  Usability review done in house, cannot be completely objective since a company will most likely assume that the way their website works is natural and intuitive.  But “intuitive” just means “what they’ve grown accustomed to.”  Having someone else review usability from a fresh perspective offers a more unbiased evaluation. 

To ensure that your website is usable, turn to a usability expert like Internet Traffic Solutions (ITS), who have the knowledge and experience to best determine the efficiency of a website’s usability.   ITS takes the following factors into consideration during their evaluation:

• Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they re-establish proficiency?
• Errors: How often do users make errors, how severe are these errors, and how easily do they recover from them?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design? Did the customer feel they accomplished their goals?

Using established usability guidelines, ITS carries out a complete usability review including a search systems usability and navigation stress test. 

A user-friendly website is guaranteed to reap benefits.  A usability review from ITS provides clients with the ability to improve their website design and build both traffic and revenues, ensuring that both the user and the client come away satisfied

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