[iKnowHow] 4 Characteristics of User-Friendly Websites

What makes a website user-friendly? There are probably an endless number of factors, but let’s look at four of the major ones.

1. Page Load Speed (যত কম সময়ে লোড হবে)
Although high-speed internet connections are becoming more and more common, there are still a large number of internet users that are on slower dial-up connections. Even with high-speed connections some pages just don’t load very quickly. At the very least, slow loading times will reduce the number of pages that they’ll visit on your site.

A program like Google Analytics will show you the percentage of your visitors that are using different internet connections. If your site attracts a high percentage of users with dial-up connections, you should be sure to keep pages loading as quickly as possible. If a very high percentage of visitors are using high-speed connections, you may be able to add a few extra elements to your pages.
Factors that influence the load times of pages include the number and size of images, extra items like flash, the amount of excess code (example, designing with a table-based layout instead of CSS), and the size of your pages. (Read more about website optimization).

2. Accessibility (সকল ব্রাউজারে দেখা যাবে)
If someone can’t use or access your website it serves no purpose for that visitor. Accessibility of websites has become a bigger priority for designers and developers in recent years, but there is still a long way to go.
Some of the easiest things that you can do to improve the accessibility of your site include using alt tags for all images, use valid HTML and CSS coding, avoid frames, and allow text to be re-sized by visitors.

3. Navigation (visitors should understand where the link will lead them)
All users want to be able to move through the website to find what they want. A huge factor in being user-friendly is providing simple and intuitive navigation. Major areas of navigation should be located consistently on all pages. Using common elements that users expect to find, like About pages and Contact pages will help as most internet users have come to expect them and will look for them at times.

A general rule of thumb is that any page on your site should be reachable with 2 clicks from your home page. For larger sites this probably isn’t realistic, but offering a sitemap and/or a sitewide search can really help.

Another important factor with navigation is that user’s shouldn’t have to guess where they will end up if they click on a link. Regardless of whether the link is part of a navigation menu, or if it is simply in the body of the text, visitors should understand where the link will lead them.

4. Information (যথা তথ্য তথা স্থানে থাকবে)
Visitors are coming to your site for a reason. Whatever that reason may be, you want to provide them with what they are seeking.

The website of a restaurant may need to provide hours of operation and a menu in order satisfy its visitors. Obviously, each situation is different. In order to have a user-friendly website you need to anticipate what visitors will expect to find at your site, and then put it right in front of them.

A primary goal of any website should be to provide its visitors with a pleasant and fulfilling experience. Regardless of what market the website is targeting, the opinions of users will play a huge role in determining the site’s level of success. Visitors that have positive experiences will be much more likely to come back later, refer friends, sign up for a newsletter, purchase a product, submit an inquiry about a service, etc.