I recently had surgery to remove a “floating” bone fragment from my Talus bone in my ankle.  Once removed the goal is to have the blood cells re-grow bone tissue to fill the gap area.  Thus my doctor ordered me to stay off my foot for 6 weeks.  So my options were crutches, or one of those fabulous new inventions – the knee scooter.  I’m a fairly athletic and still young guy, so I chose crutches.  I had also used crutches ten years ago, when I originally had broken the bone.

 Here are my impressions of using crutches so far:  1) its frustratingly hard to get to where you want to go; 2) you are limited in what you can do for yourself; 3) you wish that everyone would cater to your needs; 4) you get tired of telling people “what happened”.

 So how would I relate that to Web Usability insights?  Let’s break them down one by one.

 It’s frustratingly hard to get where you want to go.  The golden rule of web usability is to make it easy for the customer to reach the intended goal.  When you design your website make sure that you have a clear path for the customer to follow.  Make sure that your navigation is evident and consistent.  Colors and photography can make or break the first and last impression of your website, so make sure that what you use is pleasing to the general audience.  As well make sure it speaks to your audience: are you catering to business professionals? Doctors? Moms? Etc.  The biggest thing to remember is that a cool navigation bar may not be what the customer wants to use to get to the end goal, so make sure that your site is quick and easy to use and that you are always directing your customer to the end goal and not taking them away from it.

 You are limited in what you can do for yourself.  Again, having a clear function unit and clear navigation will help turn your visitor into a customer.  Have an evident onsite search placement and utilize a good search query vendor.  It’s one thing to have an onsite search placement; it’s another to return good results for a search.  You should have a dedicated person monitoring the results and tweaking as needed so that you can ensure that your top searched on terms are returning positive results and ultimately leading to a conversion.  Product recommendations and reviews are also helpful to visitors who aren’t sure of what they want or need.  Hover-view over images on thumbnail pages also reduces browsing and allows for one less click the customer has to make.  Persistent shopping bag is a great feature in that when you add an item you have the option to go to your shopping bag or continue shopping and adding more (again reducing the pogo sticking from product page to shopping bag).  Advanced sort and filter options on view all / thumbnail pages – while some customers enjoy browsing through 100’s of items others like to narrow their search instantly, having these advanced features will enable that ability.

 You wish that everyone would cater to your needs.  It’s hard for you to design a website that meets every single visitor’s wants and needs.  However, you could take the approach of something like iGoogle where you allow the customer certain customizations that apply only to their account.  Such options might include navigation preferences; certain features turned off such as product recommendations or persistent shopping bag; font or background color changes.  Another thing to consider is your customer loyalty / retention program.  As a frequent shopper of certain sites I appreciate getting special shopping events exclusive to preferred customers, as well as cash back or rewards programs.

 Finally, you get tired of telling people “what happened”.  I shouldn’t have to repeat myself, and I certainly shouldn’t have to log into a site every time I visit.  Further, I don’t like visiting sites that I have to re-set my preferences every time I go to it.  Your site should have a cookie system that remembers its visitors log in info and further keeps its settings.  These settings might include: video auto play vs. not auto play; sound on / off; view 25 vs. view 100; etc.  There are certain times when I don’t mind repeating myself, such as when I want to purchase something.  I don’t necessarily like to store my cc info with a site, however I recognize that many people are comfortable with this.  Either way, it is a best practice to ask for log in credentials when beginning the checkout process (which is hopefully being hosted on a secure server).

 So there you have it.  Some practical usability insights that you may or may not have already considered.  Most of usability is just using common sense and thinking like a customer.  Some usability takes a little more insight.  I encourage you not to stop with just the above advice.  There are plenty of books on Heuristics that will take you to an even deeper level.  You can also buy our book User Driven Change, which will give you some great actionable ideas for website optimization taken from a customer perspective.