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10 Top Tips for Buying a New PC
Want to buy a new PC? Check out our top 10 tips for buying a new PC first!.
How fast a PC do I need?
This holiday season, the slowest desktop PC most manufacturers are selling has a 1.8 GHz Celeron processor. However, if you're looking to...
Always-On Networks Created with a Wireless Router
If you're using a wireless network with Windows' built-in
Internet Connection Sharing, you're probably quite happy with it
-- but there's a problem. The problem is this: the computer the
modem is connected to needs to be turned on before any of...
Every Website will be Waynes World soon! - The Future of Broadband
“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it.”
Imagine sitting at home with your remote control, flicking through the channels, BBC1, ITV, Sky, Discovery, Disney, The Internet. Stop, did you say the...
Gaming captures the hearts of gamers, alleviates loneliness, and creates a new market for businesses.
Gaming is popular with teenagers, women, children, as well as
men. Older people say they play games as it alleviates
loneliness and puts them in contact with others. Statistics
reveal that 41% of gamers are women and more than 43 % gamers
are...
Top Ten Things to Ask Yourself About Your Website
1. Does it download fast?
"Most website crafters are in T1s, LANs and DSL, yet only 7% of the market has broadband and that's leveling off," says Bryan Eisenberg, in "Future Now." "Most customers surf at 56k or slower and roughly 60% still surf...
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Web Usability: The Basics
What is web usability & why is it important?
Web usability is about making your website in such a way that your site users can find what they're looking for quickly and efficiently. A usable website can reap huge benefits on to your website and your business.
* Every £1 invested in improving your website's usability returns £10 to £100 (source: IBM)
* A web usability redesign can increase the sales/conversion rate by 100% (source: Jakob Nielson)
Your website has to be easy to navigate
Users have gradually become accustomed to particular layouts and phrases on the Internet, for example:
* Organisation logo is in the top-left corner and links back to the homepage
* The term ‘About us’ is used for organisation information
* Navigation is in the same place on each page and adjacent to the content
* Anything flashing or placed above the top logo is often an advertisement
* The term ‘Shopping cart’ is used for items you might wish to purchase
There are numerous other conventions like these that enhance your website's usability - can you think of some more?
Don't underestimate the importance of these conventions - as the Internet matures we're getting more and more used to things being a certain way. Break these conventions and you may be left with nothing but a website with poor usability and a handful of dissatisfied site visitors.
Pages must download quickly
Usability studies have shown that 8.6 seconds is the maximum time web users will wait for a page to download (source: Andrew B. King - Speed Up Your Site). As of March 2004 just 25% of UK web users had broadband (source: UK National Statistics) so it's essential for optimal usability that your website downloads quickly.
To speed up the download time of your website we recommend you do three things:
* Use CSS and not tables to lay out your web page
* Use CSS and not images to create fancy navigation items
* Read this article about how to speed up the download time of your web pages at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/speed
Information should be easy to retrieve
We read web pages in a different manner
to the way we read printed matter. We generally don't read pages word-for-word - instead we scan. When we scan web pages certain items stand out:
* Headings
* Link text
* Bold text
* Bulleted lists
Did you notice that images were left out of that list? Contrary to the way in which we read printed matter, we see text before we see images on the Internet. For optimal website usability don't place important information in images as it might go unnoticed.
Restrictions must not be placed on users
Don't prevent your users from navigating through the Internet in the way that they want to. For example:
1. Every time a link is opened in a new window the back button is disabled. Approximately 60% of Web users employ the back button as their primary means of navigation (source: Usability Interface). If you do this then you're preventing 60% of your users from using their primary navigation - now that can't be good for usability.
2. Don't use frames to lay out your website. Frames can cause a number of usability problems, namely:
* Disabling the back button (see above)
* Bookmarking not possible
* Impossible to e-mail the link to someone else
* Problems with printing
* Users feel trapped if external links open in the same window
* Search engine optimisation issues
There are lots of other ways that websites can place restrictions on its users, ultimately damaging their usability - can you think of any more? Just think back to the last time a website really infuriated you - what annoying thing did it do to make you feel that way?
About the Author: This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.
Source: www.isnare.com
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