Usability - Not Such a Complicated Thing

Usability – is one of the latest notions that busted into our lives recently, besides Search Engine Optimization and Accessibility. All three notions appear to be very important for everyone who struggles to gain some clicks or impressions on the web, but all the theory standing beside these notions seems to me a little bit too much. And I’m going to explain why.

I recently started to work on a project about usability - theory and practice in online stores - trying to prove that every marketing department not considering usability as a major point in developing an online store will cause major loses for their company. SEO is very seriously treated by these marketing departments but usability and accessibility, even if they do not represent a new term in web developing, are still considered unimportant factors in business strategy.

Even if it took many years for SEO to be treated seriously by marketers, I think no business can afford to waste years when it comes to their website usability. Why is that? Make some calculations please. Considering the fact that more then 50% of online customers abandon their shopping carts and it is estimated that online shopping will represent a 30 billion dollars business in the next 5 years, how much money a company will lose by not taking into considerations the user needs and expectations? Who is willing not to be part of this huge profit by ignoring online customers?

What is to be done for these marketers? There are a lot of articles about usability on the web and a lot of websites for testing purposes. I did that myself. I took a website, www.nicewallpapers.info and tested users’ responses to every little change made in layout, labeling or link structure. And I’ve applied all the new stuff in my customers’ websites. But most important is that I’m aware that usability matters and I have to center my websites on what user wants and needs.

I am studying usability of online stores as part of my university graduating project and applying it in layout design at my daily job at Analecta – a well known web design studio. My playground is http://www.nicewallpapers.info.

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