Usability describes the overall user experience with interactive media - user friendliness might be another way of looking at usability. Consider this definition:
"Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object (in this case, your website) in order to achieve a particular goal." (http://styleguide.caltech.edu/navigation)
Usability is concerned with design, accessibility, language, layout, navigation and prerequisites. Poor decisions by the designer, in any of these areas, can lead to poor usability for some or even all of the users.
Language and terminology
While this includes providing information in a language familiar to your target audience, it is much more.
Terminology refers to the words used (language) to describe certain things or actions.
Most people will be unfamiliar with the term "Expunge" for instance, though I have seen it used on a web based email program. More familiar will be the terms "Delete" or "Empty Wastebasket".
It is important to use language and terms that your users will understand if they are to use interactive media comfortably. You can do this by observing conventions or standards with which the users may already be familiar.
Design
Design is a very broad term, any decision to do with the creation of any aspect of interactive media may be termed "design" but here we are concerned with "graphic design", including such things as:
- Colour
- Images
- Consistency
- Typography (use of type)
Effective use of layouts
Layout design problems are not new to interactive media, but have been around since the days of printing.
Layout is concerned with the organisation of information on the screen, such as the position of the title or heading, the location of the navigation, how images are used with text.
Layout is concerned not just with how information is organised on screen, but how much information is presented on screen. Can information be spread over several screens for instance?
Consistency is an important consideration with layouts so that users become familiar with how a website works, and do not have to re-learn on every page.
We will go into more detail in this area next week when we consider Visual Treatment within interactive media.
Identification of users
An awareness and understanding of the user is essential to meeting their needs.
You can learn more about this in the "Understanding Target Audience" and "Understanding Accessibility and User Groups" chapters of the handbook you received a few days ago.
Use of navigation
Navigation is the system implemented to allow users to "move around" within interactive media.
Navigation systems can use text links, buttons or click-able images to allow the user to "move around".
Navigation systems may include audio/visual feedback.
Navigation systems may allow the user to "move around" within the one piece of interactive media - these are called internal (or local) links. They may also allow the user to "move" to other interactive media - external (global) links.
Navigation may be organised as Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. A good explanation follows:
"Primary navigation is defined as the navigation which appears on every page of the site. Primary navigation divides all your content up in to sections, all of which are navigable from anywhere in the site.
"Secondary navigation occurs when primary sections of the site have enough content to warrant navigation within that section. The same applies to tertiary navigation"
(http://styleguide.caltech.edu/navigation)
Although you should feel free to be creative as well, it is worth considering this:
"Usability studies show that people reading web pages tend to linger more on the left side of the page than anywhere else. This makes the left side a good place for your navigation, as it is arguably one of the most important elements on your site." (http://styleguide.caltech.edu/navigation)
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