GrindSmart

Usability is crucial to the attraction of users. If your website isn’t usable then you will not only fail to retain users, but it will be rendered “useless” in a variety of ways. Below we’ve put together a small guide to 5 mistakes anyone who doesn’t practice good usability can commit. Once you’re able to steer clear of these errors, then you’re well on your way to taking part in good usability and increasing the usage of your website.

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Failing to Tell the User Which Links Have Been Visited

Links are an important element of any content that’s being displayed on your website. Many times links are used to direct users outside or inside of the website for further references. If you have a link within your content then you’re more than likely trying to influence the user into clicking it, but if you haven’t let the user know that they have not visited the link then they’ll assume they’ve either visited it or they haven’t.

And if they have and they click through, it can become quite annoying trying to differentiate which links they’ve visited and which ones they haven’t. You can style your links through the CSS. You could even use a lighter or darker color for links that have been visited. It’s up to you.

Forgetting to Accompany Alt Text With Your Images

<img src="filename.jpg" alt="Alternative description goes here" />

There’s an alt tag, it’s there to let you know that your user’s browser won’t always load an image or it could “disappear” from the server and a small indication that an image is supposed to be there would be awesome. You should always add some sort of description to your images just in case they don’t load.

This will let the user know something went wrong, however, you went out of your way and added a description for them. This is both good accessibility and usability because images can and are used as links and/or a way to further depict content.

Not Linking the Logo to Your Homepage

Isn’t it annoying when you’re visiting a website and you skim through what seems like a thousand pages and all you want to do is go back to the homepage, but when you try to click on the logo, nothing happens? This frustrating and I thought it was worth mentioning since your users will definitely appreciate this, especially if you have a large website.

Justifying Text

Justified text may look much cleaner and easier to read, but in reality it’s usually not. When you justify your text you spread the uneven paragraph until it’s evenly stretch on both sides. This causes users to rapidly confuse scentences and it also discourages users from continuing to read because of the uneven spacing between the words. I would recommend not to justify your text unless you absolutely have to.

Not Identifying Active Fields Within Your Forms

If you have a webform and the user can’t note the difference between the field they’re currently using and the rest of the other ones, then you have a problem. It’s good usability when the user switches from one field to the next and the active field lights up a different color, the border changes, or a small text-box pops-up informing the user of what is required of that specific field. The point is to make sure you indicate which field is which, it will go a long way and could even produce higher conversion rates for sign-up forms.