Site analysis: usability. Part 1

The popularity of the site depends on a number of parameters. And every day, new websites appear on the Internet, only to be abandoned. The reason for this outcome usually lies in the low traffic of the site. Even with perfect marketing, there is no guarantee that visitors will visit your web page. Therefore, you need to make every effort to make the website user-friendly. Usability is responsible for convenience. 

The main part of the target audience comes for information, but if there are difficulties in finding the right content, the user will go to competitors. In this article, we will analyze what usability problems exist and how to fix them.

Site usability analysis: what is it?

Usability is an indicator of the convenience of the site for the user. This parameter determines whether the user is delayed and whether the conversion is completed. Of course, usability analysis is a check on a resource for convenience. After launching the site, you need to check each function, identify all errors, and eliminate them. For example, take an online store that sells sporting goods. Customers may have problems when trying to place an order. When the data is being filled in, the buyer may get stuck at a certain step, for example, if the button for sending data is unavailable.

There are sites on the Internet where styles are written crookedly, and some elements may be hidden behind other blocks. For example, there are problems with the submit button, which makes it almost impossible to click on it. This is one example, but quite often there are common design problems, like when all the functions work but visitors still leave the resource. This is due to the fact that the appearance of the resource is repulsive. Bright colors, small print—these are the reasons for which there is a high percentage of failures. To improve the behavioral factor, you need to analyze the project. Above, we considered such a term as "site usability analysis" and what it is, and now let's move on to how to do usability testing correctly and which parameters to pay attention to first.

How to analyze the website interface

First of all, check the page's loading speed. The best option is 1-2 seconds; if it takes longer, 50% of users will leave the page without waiting for it to load.

To fix the situation and speed up your site, you should optimize the code, namely, remove unnecessary spaces from the code and combine styles; the same applies to javascript. Page caching should be added. When you log in, the web resource will be stored in the cache, and when you visit it again, the page will be loaded from the cache, which saves time on loading.

Here are a few more steps to follow:

1. Fixing html errors: make sure all tags are closed. Check the attributes in the tags; for example, the class in the document may appear several times with the same name. The ID must occur with the same name without a duplicate.

2. Cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility is an important indicator of the site, which should be displayed equally well in all browsers and on mobile phones.
The site blocks should fit into the display without the use of scroll bars on mobile devices. This can be achieved by writing styles in a CSS file. To make settings for smartphones, add a meta tag with the name attribute to the html and enter the viewport there. The content attribute also needs to be filled with the value "width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0." To specify smartphone styles, use the media command and add styles for the smartphone in curly brackets.

3. Make sure that all clickable elements work and perform the necessary functions. Sometimes there are blocks that look like buttons, but it turns out that this is part of the design. It is better to use a separate style for design objects that differ from buttons.

4. Stick to the same style. When a user searches for information, he looks at several pages at once, making sure that they have a single design. If they differ, the client will decide that he is already on another site. Consider whether the site will be dark or light in color. The dark version is perfect for use at night.

5. Avoid overlapping elements and pop-ups. There are situations when a visitor is looking for a button and it is hidden behind a container. The main feature of pop-up windows is that they appear at the wrong time, and there are often situations when there is no cross and you can close them only by performing an action, for example, by subscribing. It is better not to do this but to bind the pop-up to the closing of the page. For example, if a user has read an article and is about to leave, a window will open with the message, "Are you going to leave? Take away the training material and leave an email."

6. Availability of information. The article must be readable and fully visible on a device of any resolution.

7. The logic of the site. The resource must have a certain structure so that the client can quickly achieve the goal and find the information of interest.