A Good User-Friendly Website - Assignment Example

A Good User-Friendly Website Before going into the discussion regarding how to make a user-friendly website, let us first get to know what a website actually is in order to get a better understanding of the issues related to development of a user-friendly website. A website is a collection of web pages that are present on the internet. The main purpose of a website is to make the users access desired information from the internet. A website offers many benefits to the user of the internet. Some of the most significant benefits of a website include market expansion for the businesses, increased volume of sales through making the company reach international markets, 24/7 hours customers service, improved credibility of the businesses, provides growth opportunity for the companies, and provides all sorts of information about anything to the internet users. All of these benefits make website one of the most important parts of every individual’s life. Apart from these benefits, the most important thing regarding a website is the convenience, which it provides to the users while they view the website for any kind of personal or official use. One of the main reasons for creating a user-friendly website is the ease of interaction that is provides to the users. If a company develops a website, which is very easy in use and does not have a complex interface, it will attract more customers because people like to explore easily understandable websites instead of wasting their time on exploring complex websites. Therefore, it is critical for a company to create a user-oriented website. Factors to be considered Let us now discuss those factors, which need to be considered by the website developers while they develop a convenient and a user-friendly website. Some of the major elements of a user-friendly website include appearance of a website, typography, access to pages of a website, navigation and controls, layout and design of a website, and the download speed of web pages. Appearance of a Website Appearance of a website is the most important factor that needs to be considered during the process of website development. If a website is boring and contains heavy text in the homepage, the users will not be attracted towards the website. It is because the users do not like to read a large amount of text on the website, rather they like to explore the website, which contains some informative images. A website should not have a boring appearance because the users do not want to explore an unattractive website. Users are attracted only to those websites, which provides them with some entertaining stuff in the form of flash images and colorful text. Typography Typography is one of the most important factors to be considered by the website developers. The size of the text plays a significant role in developing a user-friendly website. Some people cannot read very small text whereas some people face difficulty in reading unusual font styles. Less than 10-point font is generally very difficult to be read by most of the internet users. Therefore, the text that is written on a website should neither be of very large size nor should it be typed in a difficult font style. Access to Pages of a Website Another important factor is access to the pages of a website. We often see some websites in which it is not very easy for the users to access some web pages. The time taken by a website to open its web pages is related directly to the satisfaction of users with the website. If a website takes a long time opening its pages, it makes the users close the website. Users like to open those websites, which open their pages in a couple of seconds instead of taking 7 to 8 seconds opening the desired web pages. Therefore, easy and fast access to the web pages is very important in order to develop a user-friendly website. Navigation and Controls Navigation and controls are also two of the most important part of a user-friendly website. Website developers should know that the users of the internet do not always type the website address on the address bar of the explorer. Users sometimes type the company name on the search engines in order to make the search engines open their desired websites. Users do not always carry a specific search for their desired products through opening the websites of the companies; rather they use the search engines to search for the companies, which provide those products to the customers. Therefore, a website should be placed in every search engine in order to make the search engines open the website for the users. The navigation and controls of the website should not be made complex because complexity of a website often goes against the user satisfaction with the website. Layout and Design of a Website Design and layout of a website play also play a critical role in attracting the users to a website. Home page should contain attractive information instead of details. Links should be placed at appropriate places on the home page. Only those links should be placed on the website, which most of the users like to open instead of placing unusual links on the home page. Customer services link, contacts link, product list link, and feedback link are some of those links, which should be placed on a website’s home page in order to create a user-friendly website. Download Speed Fast download speed is an important element of a user-friendly website. People do not want to open such websites, which take a long time opening the home page. So it is extremely important for a web designer to develop a website having fast download speed. So, these were some of the most important factors, which need to be considered by the website developers while creating a user-friendly website. If any of these factors is not considered during development of a website, the goal of developing a convenient and user-friendly website cannot be achieved. Word Count: 1003 words. References Not Required. Read More