Resources for further reading on website usability

Make Website Smarter

Many experts have shed light on website usability in a variety of fashion. The ultimate decision is yours. However, always think of how the visitors to your website would behave and would accept or not accept how you have organized your website.

The experts in any field are somewhat, in my opinion, forced to think in a very narrow tunnel. But because they have done so much research in their respective fields, we have to, more or less, follow them. But there is nothing wrong in following our own thinking and our own way of doing things especially when it comes to designing and structuring our own created website.

Having said that, there are common basic rules that you can apply to your website. I have researched some articles and websites to give you a general idea of how to design your overall website.

Jakob Nielsen
The ten most egregious offenses against users. Web design disasters and HTML horrors are legion, though many usability atrocities are less common than they used to be.

Bruce Tognazzini
The following principles are fundamental to the design and implementation of effective interfaces, whether for traditional GUI environments or the web. Of late, many web applications have reflected a lack of understanding of many of these principles of interaction design, to their great detriment. Because an application or service appears on the web, the principles do not change. If anything, applying these principles become even more important.

Effective interfaces are visually apparent and forgiving, instilling in their users a sense of control. Users quickly see the breadth of their options, grasp how to achieve their goals, and do their work.

Effective interfaces do not concern the user with the inner workings of the system. Work is carefully and continuously saved, with full option for the user to undo any activity at any time.

Effective applications and services perform a maximum of work, while requiring a minimum of information from users.

Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design"
These rules were obtained from the text Designing the User Interface by Ben Shneiderman. Shneiderman proposed this collection of principles that are derived heuristically from experience and applicable in most interactive systems after being properly refined, extended, and interpreted.

To improve the usability of an application it is important to have a well designed interface. Shneiderman's "Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design" are a guide to good interaction design.

Theo Mandel
User Interface Design Principles - Why should you need to follow user interface principles? In the past, computer software was designed with little regard for the user, so the user had to somehow adapt to the system. This approach to system design is not at all appropriate today - the system must adapt to the user. This is why design principles are so important.

You should have an understanding and awareness of the user’s mental model and the physical,
physiological, and psychological abilities of users.

The three areas of user interface design principles are:

1. Place users in control of the interface

2. Reduce users’ memory load

3. Make the user interface consistent.