Improving Website Usability Quickly - 9 Steps

In our blog, we have been writing for several years that business websites are created not only to please the owner, but also to please as many people as possible.

Nevertheless, it is still possible come across a lot of sites that unfortunately don't meet the usability requirements.

This blog post provides a list of 9 steps to quickly improve your site's usability.

You even you have no idea how little you can sometimes do to make the end result just amazing.

So check out this list of little "little things" that, if done, can be extremely useful for your business.

Improve the usability of a website quickly - how to achieve it?

1. Remove "Home" menu item

Links to the main page below the form mentioned in the heading of this subsection, or something like "Home" are now a thing of the past.

If the label of such a link is is called "Home Page", then such a link is wide enough. It takes up a lot of space.

Even if the label were not long and contained only a house icon, it would still be an extra element.

This is because it is now customary to insert a link to homepage on the logo. Over the past few years, this has become an increasingly common practice - so common that it's now become standard.

The idea is to keep the top menu only containing the most important items. Moreover, the most relevant of them should be on the limbs. Then they become the most visible to the audience.

2. Place links to phone numbers

Since mobile devices often account for more than half of the sources of visits to various websites, this type of activity is increasingly being given priority.

Namely, I mean to do numbers "tangible" or "dialable".

Not so long ago it didn't matter much, whereas today we often want to get in touch with someone as quickly as possible.

Can be copied and insert such a number in the right place in the so-called dialer, but it's much easier when you just touch the number ... and that's it. The number is dialed, you just have to call.

3. Highlight links appropriately

A quick improvement in the usability of a website should of course also include checking all links.

They need to be highlighted properly.

Basic , of course, in that they contrast not only with the background, but also with the "plain text".

In addition, it would be nice to make it so that when you hover over such a link, an effect appears. This way the user knows it's the active element.

Needless to say, you should check your site from time to time to make sure there are no links returning 404 status.

4.Ditch the homepage slider

Sliders usually only seem cool to site owners. When it comes down to it, users aren't too keen on them anymore.

Why?

Because in general we care about the speed and efficiency of the site navigation process. Sliders mean that some of the content is not immediately visible. Not only will you have to wait for it, but you will also have to click on it several times to see all the slides.

What's more, some slides don't even offer navigation, leaving users at the mercy of the programmer at that particular moment.

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You can learn more about this topic in Bartlomey Kilian's article: Should You Use Slides on Your Homepage?

Not only do you find solid arguments, but also a number of alternatives that really work.

5. Break large blocks of text into smaller ones and complete them with icons

If you want your content to be useful not only for search engine robots, but also for users, it's time to "share it".

Rows and columns are the best way to do this, and using them in combination with text can have an extremely aesthetically pleasing effect.

My goal is to make sure that all the text doesn't bother users. Not only in terms of content, but also in terms of presentation, since "heavy" text is simply boring and does not encourage further reading.

Icons of various types are also useful, with which you can effectively direct the visitor's gaze to different parts of the site.

They also reinforce the message by replacing multiple words with a single character.

6. In the contact form, indicate the ability to send a copy of the message to your own mailbox

A quick improvement in the usability of your site may also include the addition of one field that can make a big difference.

This field, if it is checked, then the message via the form will also be sent to the user's mailbox.

This solution is becoming more common on websites, and this fact is not really surprising.

If we send an email manually (simply by creating a message ourselves and pasting the email address into the appropriate field), we feel much more secure than if we click the "Submit" button on a contact form. In the latter case, we have no guarantee that the message was actually sent.

The introduction of such a field increases the level of trust from this point of view.

7. If you have extensive navigation, put it in the footer

Sometimes it happens that a site has a large number of subpages, which together form an extensive network.

This can not always be neatly placed in the main the menu is the one at the very top of the page.

In such cases, it is useful to create a kind of sitemap in the footer. It is not intrusive at all, since it is displayed only for those who decide to scroll the page to the very bottom.However, it is very useful for those sites whose network of subpages is very wide.

8. Make your site faster

Improving a website's usability quickly can also include working on the speed of transitions between subpages.

Analyze your site with GTmetrix and Pingdom Website Speed ​​Test and see if it's acceptable see the results.

If something is wrong, be sure to look into the topic of improving the performance of your site.

If your site is based on the WordPress system, then you win, because for this CMS there are many add-ons with which you can influence this state.

9. Improve the readability of texts

What exactly affects the readability of text on a particular site?

There are several factors, the main ones are:

• font size
• font types
• text color
• line height

Changing the above settings usually only takes a few minutes of work in CSS files . However, it has a significant impact on how readers perceive the text on a given web page.

Therefore, make sure that the parameters I mentioned are chosen well enough for users to find your site convenient.

Is it even possible to quickly improve the usability of a website?

Of course!

All of the above questions do not take much time to implement (assuming, of course, that the web -the site is not overly complex and difficult to use from the back side).

However, they can make a big difference in how the site is perceived by users.

So I hope you find it helpful guide.