10 Criteria for a Usable Website

What is a usable website? Here is a handful of criteria that help you to test how user-oriented and well-designed your website is.

  1. Orientation towards the target group. For example, a B2B website should differ from a B2C website.
  2. Technical usability. Those include load times, correct display on different devices, etc.
  3. Clear-cut and easy to use navigation. The navigation should be as intuitive as possible. Also, try to reduce the number of items in navigation to a minimum.
  4. Uniform design. Use the same styles, fonts, colors, etc. on each page.
  5. Structured content. Structure the content in a such a way that a user can easily find what their looking for.
  6. Clear, compact and precise text. Avoid run-on sentences, use bullet points, headlines, etc. to make the text more readable.
  7. Up-to-date information. Watch for outdated pages, broken links, etc.
  8. Accessibility (i.e. usability for disabled users). Includes color contrast, fonts, alt-texts, etc.
  9. Search engine friendliness. Optimize your website for SEO, however, not at the cost of worse usability.
  10. Well-planned layout. Your website should lead visitors along logical and clear navigation paths.

(translated and adapted  from German, Web-Design course at VHB)

This list is useful for the evaluation of existing websites and designing a new website.

usable-website-criteria

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

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Author: Elena

I acquired a BA degree in International Business with a specialization in Marketing from Nuremberg Technical School and a parallel degree from Leeds Metropolitan University. In 2013-2014, I worked in the field of performance and conversion optimization with an IT company and then was employed in content marketing. In 2016, I went back to working with Web Analytics and gained additional experience in project management. During this time, I received an Award of Achievement in Digital Analytics from the University of British Columbia (Canada). Currently, I am employed in Online Marketing. My areas of specialization include online marketing strategy, content creation, web analytics, conversion optimization and usability.

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