Usability refers to the overall ease and comfort with which a visitor can complete a task. It has become an important facet of software, web and e-newsletter design.

Generally, things are more usable when they are

• Familiar, following well-known patterns and methods: buttons have beveled edges, underlined text can be clicked.
• Easy to learn. Where it veers from the familiar, design should be consistent and memorable.
• Patterned. Linear, shallow patterns are simple to learn and make navigation efficient. Complicated patterns still work if they are consistent, but are harder to learn and some people may not recognize them.
• Replicable. The visitor sees familiar patterns at every visit.
• Satisfying. The visitor leaves with a sense of accomplishment

Plan Your Usability Strategy

The simplest way to test usability is to ask people to try your design. Do they make mistakes? Can they find information and complete tasks? Do they get frustrated?

Testing potential visitors through many iterations of a design is costly, but compare this with the cost of completing a project that fails when released to its public.

Know What is Involved

To perform a usability study we need a list of the site’s goals, expected capabilities and target market. From there we can

• Script scenarios
• Develop questionnaires
• Recruit end users and generate schedules for testing
• Testing the graphical user interface (GUI) both in the lab and “in the field” (where your users will be)
• Present findings with actionable recommendations.
• Work with team members to prioritize recommendations and generate feasible solutions.

Best Usability Practices

Keep testing with online focus groups. Take a page from Google and set up a team of outsiders who routinely comment on the site and comment on new and proposed features.

Perform A/B and multivariate testing to test different feature combinations for their effect. Regard each part of the page as a potential variable: style of copy, font color and size, use of images and headlines, different promotions, background textures, juxtaposition of content elements.