Website Usability

Ever went to a website that is difficult to use? You tried clicking on any hyperlinks that you can find, but still could not find what you are looking for? This is where usability comes in.

Usability, as defined by Jakob Nielsen, is a "quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use". it is defined by five quality components. But before we get into it, let's take a random website HERE, scrutinise it, and evaluate whether it follows the five components.

The "lucky" website to be picked is CompleteCase.com, which specialize in (yikes!) divorce cases. Now let's look at the five components:

• Learnability: It is defined as how easy it is for users to use. It is a user-friendly website. I could easily navigate through different pages as the hyperlinks are on the top of the page

• Efficiency: This means how fast they can perform task in the website upon learning the design. I say very fast. Like I said in the previous point, the hyperlinks made navigating easy

• Memorability: Which means whether users will be able to remember how to use the website. This is a user-friendly website, so users will have no issues in navigating this site, even if they did not visit the page for a long time

• Errors: This refers to the amount of errors users made when they visit the site. The only errors that users can made in this site is when they made a mistake in filling up the online forms to engage in their service. Other than that, they could not make an error

• Satisfaction: I'm not a married man, neither am I filing a divorce (even if I am, this website is based in the United States), so I could not say if I am satisfied with using this site. But I do find important information that could ease the potential divorcee's worries. So I believe the intended audience will be satisfied with this site

It is important that users are able to find the site useful and easy to navigate. There are times when I feel frustrated because the website was not user-friendly. Users like me will usually leave the page after a few minutes, and I believe you would too.

Nielsen, J 2003, Usability 101: Introduction to Usability, useit.com, viewed 9 February 2011, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030825.html