Website Usability & Tips To Avoid Common Blunders

Usability is one of the most important features of any site, whether it is targeted at PC users or mobile users. It is all well and good having a really good looking site, but if it is difficult and annoying to use, then users are not going to be revisiting your site any time soon. In this blog post, we will take a look at some of the dos and don’ts of site design for the Australian market. Irrespective of your business, these blunders apply to giant ecommerce retailers and trade services sites alike.

Tip 1 - The Importance of the Search Box
If your site has a lot of content, give your visitors a helping hand to find what they want quickly and easily by including a search box. This will allow users to type in the name of a specific item without the need to search through seemingly endless pages of information.

Tip 2 - Keep Content Readable
Great design is important, however, it is the content that your visitors will be interested in, and in order to make sure that your content is displayed in a way that is easy on the eye there are a number of things you need to do. The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you limit your use of fonts to no more than 3 to a page. Secondly, the size of the font needs to be limited also, and finally, paragraphs need to be kept short.

Tip 3 - Keep your Content Updated Regularly
In order to keep your customers well informed, as well as interested, you should endeavour to update the content on your site updated on a regular basis.

Tip 4 - Poor site navigation 
Poor site navigation is one thing that is going to irk a lot of visitors to your site, and people are highly unlikely to return if their overall user experience is poor. In order to optimize the navigation of your site, you need to incorporate certain features, such as easy to use links, highlighted text hyperlinks, and the removal of obsolete links.

Tip 5 - Be Consistent
Although being creative is something that is going to make for a good looking site, however, you need to make sure that you are consistent with your design and layout. Don't have different layouts on each page, alternating image themes, colours etc - our team produces consistent sites first time, every time.  

Tip 6 - Make your Contact Details Prominent

In order to allow your customers and visitors to your site to contact you should they need you, you should make your contact details – email, phone, company address etc – easy to find, as well as making them prominently displayed.

Small Business Web Designs has the experience in building your site to grab the attention needed to attract more customers. Our site designs are clean, clear and effective - offering sites Australian-wide, we welcome you to contact our friendly team to find out how we've helped hundreds of Australian business to achieve a site that exceeds all expectations.