For your website to be a sales tool, it needs to offer a riding-a-bike level of easiness. Maybe even falling off a log. In website usability terms, your visitors need to answer three questions: Where am I? Where have I been? Where can I go?
Moves should be as smooth and simple as freshly served pink blancmange. That means putting the same navigation system on each page. Having predictable links. Using the right text inside links. And not having cul-de-sacs.
Clean designs
Website usability also means having clean designs, straightforward shopping carts and informative copy. In short, making usability the cornerstone of your site - so visitors don't go running off to a competitor.
Website usability is what keeps your family eating. Not to put too fine a point on it. Because, while your family go hungry, your web visitors are hungry for information. So keep them on your site. Just so long that they place a nice little order. Or a big one.
Short, sweet sentences
Let's not forget the words. Design will keep your visitors on the page. But the copy will make them buy. Remember that experts believe that reading on a computer for two hours is as tiring as doing eight laps of the M25. On a pogo stick. Well, nearly. So website usability demands that writing is simple, short, sweet, with tight sentences and subheadings to break it all up. We can help with this.
Website usability also means avoiding slang and jargon. This makes your site accessible to a wide audience. The more people who understand it, the bigger your market. Short words hit the mark, too - like begin instead of commence; needs instead of requirements.
Speak directly to your readers - use 'you'. And write actively: 'The city was levelled by the giant monkey' is passive and should be replaced by 'The giant monkey levelled the city'. Or probably by a more-relevant sentence.
Selling holes
Website usability demands that copy focuses on benefits, not features. Your drill sells holes. The sizzle sells the sausage. Your life insurance sells peace of mind.
All this website usability stuff comes naturally to us. I-COM incorporates all this user-friendliness into our web development, with user-focused needs analysis, user profiling, and usability testing.
In fact, we take care of everything usability, so that all your customers have to do is buy. So call us today on 0800 072 8717 or email us.
