In today’s technology-driven world, businesses and organizations cannot afford to be idle. With respect to websites, companies must be especially aware of user standards and expectations. They must be constantly updating and improving upon their content and navigation to ensure that users are finding the information they need in a quick and logical manner.
Carol Barnum (2011) quotes the International Organization for Standardization when she defines usability as “the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (p. 11).
When examining a website, this explanation of usability can be considered especially helpful. What goals will users most likely have when visiting this site? How easily can they meet them? How satisfied or frustrated with they be when they have finished their task?
These questions are important to ask when designing a website. If the user is not at the focus of a site, it will most likely have issues that will prove detrimental to the website’s overall mission, whatever it may be.
For instance, an academic website’s mission would likely be to recruit prospective students to a certain program or department. When designing an academic website, then, questions of logic and user experience should naturally arise. What will prospective students be most interested in? Where will they want to look first? What information should be immediately available?
These types of scenario-based questions can often be answered by conducting a usability test in order to determine the positive and negative aspects of a website. In addition to usability testing, there are several existing standards that have been researched, tested, and studied to suggest effective methods for designing a website to provide the best experience for the user.
Summary of Research on Web Usability