Website "Usability" Consulting

 

Website usability is a unique field of expertise.

Let's think about the evolution of business Web sites on the Internet .

First, there were Web sites and Web pages. Then a few companies got smart, developing and managing databases of large numbers of Websites. Those companies were the beginnings of the search engines we have today. As the number of sites on the Internet grew, search engines became more important to business owners with Web sites, because it wasn't enough just to be on the Web-- it became important to be found on the Web. Today, there are so many businesses with Web sites on the Internet that it's not enough for a customer to find you on the search engines. Your customers need to find what they are looking for on your site, and your site needs to offer what they need quickly and directly or they are apt to click on the Back button to find the next business on the list. The necessity to streamline a Web site for such qualities as intuitiveness, aesthetics, and functionality while minimizing the numbers of clicks and pages to sort through is what makes up Web Site Usability.
 
Usability issubjectively measured in terms of stickiness, or how inclined your customer is to remain on your site once they find it. When you consider that the average visitor that stumbles across a Web site through a search engine spends about 12 to 15 seconds looking it over before clicking the Back button, Website Usability considerations become very important. If yours is the site they stick to for more than 15 seconds when they find you, the chances of your visitors bookmarking your site and returning to it are exponentially greater than the site they depart from via their browser's Back button.