I just spent way too long updating my Facebook profile. I created a specific “Family and Close Friends” group who can see my personal contact information and then applied that group to the specific content. Sounds simple enough, right? Not so much.

With all the new technology being developed at hyper-sonic speed, has everyone forgotten about Usability? Or at least the one or two User Experience Engineers on staff who are overwhelmed, underutilized, and / or disregarded?

Let’s just cover the basics for those not in the know. Usability is the ease with which your user can use the tools available to achieve their goal. Note that I said their goal. You may want your user to sign up for your email notifications or complete a survey, but those are your goals.

So back to Facebook. Knowing that they are wildly popular, you would think that they would employ better Usability standards. By default, being one of the largest social media sites on the web, they set standards. Heavy usage and millions of users result in users who are “trained” and then, most likely, expect the same user experience on other sites. And let’s not forget about your Brand. Usability of your website is a direct reflection of your brand. A customer can easily equate a poor website experience with a poor product or service.

So let’s review a few key Usability concepts that seem to have been overlooked recently.

Know your user
This seems simple enough, but for Usability it breaks down into two key areas. The first is Domain Knowledge. This is the knowledge your user has on the subject matter itself. For example, most people have high domain knowledge of clothing, household consumer products, and food. When presented with the question: What do you want on your pizza? You know the choices and don’t need to see a list of toppings. Even if you did see a list of toppings, nothing on it would be foreign to you. Ensure that your site is built to accommodate the level of domain knowledge of your user. If your product or service is new or not widely known, you may put more prominence on what the product or service is and how it’s used.

The second area is Technology Knowledge. You may know that your users have a deep understanding of your domain, but are they web savvy? Are they comfortable navigating sites, using search (correctly), drop-down menus, setting up profiles, etc.? If you know your users have a high level of technology knowledge, you can employ more sophisticated navigation and settings technology. If not, keep it simple and obvious.

Know what your user wants to do
Users come to a site with a specific task in mind. They want to accomplish their task and move on. As a site owner or manager, you should provide simple access to these tasks, clear feedback that the steps being taken are steps closer to completing the task, and indications that progress is being made.

Know what you don’t know
Yes, you are the subject matter expert. Yes, you have done all the research and gathered all the facts on your target audience. And yes, you are paying the bill. That does not make you a Usability expert. You are too close to the content to see it as a user.  Your expertise on the content is only relevant to the domain knowledge, not the technology knowledge. You are not versed in the standards of user-centered design. Let the experts do their job.

Don’t reinvent the wheel
If you’re building a site or a piece of functionality, see what’s out there already. Whenever I am presented with a Usability question, I usually try to call to memory what common computing experiences I have had or am aware of that are similar. I then search prominent sites of similar domain to see what has been done. Assuming it has been done already, I evaluate how the implementation would apply to my Usability question. If nothing else out there seems to fit, I resort back to the basics as outlined throughout this article.

Test, test, and test again
Nothing beats a real world usability test. Real users, real world scenarios. It’s hard to argue a point if 9 out of 10 users can’t accomplish the task they wish to complete. I’ve been blown away by watching users try to complete tasks on my systems only to get hung up on the smallest detail—things that may never come to light without a proper usability test. If you can’t afford a full-blown test, ask a friend or colleague to accomplish a few tasks.

Now, it should go without saying that my blog post here cannot cover the expanse of the Usability world. If you really want to have a thriving online presence, find a User Experience expert or read up on the links and books below.

Some may say, “If you build it, they will come.” Regardless whether or not that is true, I say “If they can’t figure out how to use it, the will most certainly go and, most likely, they will not return.”

Online Usability resources:
www.useit.com (Jakob Nielsen, Usability Guru)
www.uie.com (Jared Spool, Usability Guru)

Usability books:

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