Web Usability Blog

Most people come to most websites with a clear goal in mind:

It’s no secret that Google’s algorithm takes into account user experience and good usability as part of a site’s ranking, but what does this actually mean in practical terms?

Everyone has a website these days so developing one should be straightforward, right? Then why are so many websites so difficult or frustrating to use.

We believe that developing an effective, usable website is highly achievable. Here are our 7 steps to get you there:

Gaining input from users is an essential part of developing an effective digital service. There are lots of methods available to you to do this but how do you know which is the right one to use?  

A successful website relies on more than just the people in the digital team. Marketing, product, policy and many other departments will have a role to play.

How we browse the web is determined by a number of different things: what we are trying to find, how high value our search query is, the sort of person that we are.

We sometimes come across clients who argue that they don’t need to do any UX testing because they undertake A/B or multivariate testing. They say that these approaches provide hard evidence of what actually works. It is hard to argue with “We made this change and there was a 10% uplift in sales”.

Having been approached by a large national charity to develop a new information architecture for their website, we were about to suggest a traditional user-centred approach - open card sorting followed by iterative testing of a prototype - when we learnt that the client had already experienced a card sorting exercise, along with usability testing, carried out by another agency.

Regardless of the industry a business operates in, the online user journey will most likely look significantly different today than it did at the start of March 2020. The user has relied perhaps more notably than ever on the digital experience. Equally the digital experience has adapted alongside the pandemic in response to remote working and increased time online in our own homes. This has prompted more sectors to be user-led and accessible; 2022 will hopefully be a year for expanding this further. So, what are the trends for 2022 to look out for and to adapt into your New Year digital goals? 

What is the best type of navigation for your website? With our 15 years of UX experience and many hours spent watching thousands of testers on hundreds of websites here are our thoughts.