Contents

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Contents

• Define Web Usability and Why
• Benefits of Usability
• Guiding Principles
• Web Standards, Accessibility and Usability
  connections
• Resources

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Define Web Usability

• Make sure a website works well and
• a person of an average (or lower)
• ability and experience can use it.

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.Why is it important

• The first law of e-commerce is that if users
  cannot find the product, they cannot buy it
  either.
• For intranets, usability is a matter of employee
  productivity. Time users waste being lost on your
  intranet or pondering difficult instructions is
  money you waste by paying them to be at work
  without getting work done.

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Why should we care for usability, for
example.say in an University?

• Because unlike commercial websites, you cannot
  switch university websites if you cannot find
  specific information.
• This principle is the same regarding intranets.

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Benefits of usability

• Increased productivity (for the user)
• Decreased training and support costs
• Increased enrollment (sales and revenues)
• Reduced development time and costs
• Reduced maintenance costs
• Increased customer satisfaction

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Guiding Principles First Law of Usability

• Dont make me think!
• As much as possible, when you look at a webpage,
  It should be self evident. Obvious. Self
  Explanatory.
• If the user has to extend or exert extra effort
  to complete a task, then you can still refine
  your efforts to make the task easier

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Which is a button?
They are all buttons. But experience tells us
that the one which is bevelled is and will always
be a button. This is the power of conventions,
similarly, a word with an underline will always
look like a hyperlink to many users.
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How do we read pages?

• We dont read them, we scan them.

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How designers think readers read web pages
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How users really use the web - We look for
anything that is interesting, or vaguely
resembles what we are looking for
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Test for good navigation

• Site ID (site logo and tagline)
• Page name
• Sections and sub-sections (global navigation
• Local navigation
• You are here indicators (breadcrumbs)
• Search

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Usability Testing

• Usability testing is an assessment tool used by
  human factors practitioners to perform an
  objective evaluation of a product or software
  interface
• Participants perform typical tasks with a
  software system or website while thinking aloud
• Can users perform tasks easily?
• Where can the website design be improved?
• What areas of the website work well?

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Do a Usability Test

• Make it simple that you do enough of it. Just do
  it.
• Testing one user is 100 better than testing
  none.

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Web Accessibility

• practice of making Web pages on the Internet
  accessible to all users, especially those with
  disabilities.
• You cannot use something if you do not have
  access to it.
• Make your site accessible by following the web
  standards by w3c - http//www.w3.org/

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Accessibility Techniques

• Alt tags (image description)
• Descriptive links
• Long description (long desc)
• Access keys (keyboard shortcuts)
• Accessibility statement
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
  http//www.w3.org/WAI/
• An accessible website is automatically a usable
  website

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Web Standards

• They are actually recommendations and
  specifications by W3C to lead the World Wide Web
  to its full potential by developing protocols and
  guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the
  Web

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Resources

• Usability
• Morae, an all digital usability testing software
  or Camtasia Studio Techsmith.com
• The Usability Professionals' Association
  http//www.upassoc.org/
• Dont make me think - Steve Krug
• http//csszengarden.com/
• http//www.sitepoint.com/
• http//alistapart.com/

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Raghavender Reddy Budamala