Principles of Website Usability: Think "Glance" and "Scan"

 

Well-known website usability expert Steve Krug (Don't Make Me Think) advises to "make everything obvious and self-explanatory". What's his definition of "self-explanatory": ANYONE on any page can tell what it is and how to use it, just by looking at it.

Visitors Won't Stick Around to "Learn How a Website Works"

His thousands of usability studies (conducted by sitting with individual web surfers, watching their actions, and asking them to "think out loud") have led him to conclude:

1. Visitors want to be able to figure out your web site at a GLANCE. 

2. They want to be able to SCAN to find what they're looking for. (He recommends avoiding the use of pull-down menus as part of your web navigation. They're not visible to the scanning visitor -- which is pretty much everyone.) 

Website Usability Principles

Krug's key principles of website usability include:

•   "Persistent navigation": same place, every page 

•  Design for scan-ability 

•  Create a clear visual hierarchy 

•  Make your links obvious so visitors can't miss them

•   "Above the fold" copy should be the most important copy on the page

Design Comes Before Copy in Creating Websites

Krug points out that web pages should be "design-driven". You should figure out where you want the major items in terms of layout, and then write copy to fit the layout.

 

 

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