Usability

Have you ever visited a website and faced one of these issues? 

• Unclear navigation
• The page took forever to load 
• The text was too small to read on your phone 

These are some recurring issues that cause frustration among visitors, often forcing them to drop off from your website and look for other options.

Also, these issues indicate that a website has poor usability. 

Usability defines the user-friendliness of a platform, ensuring that users can find what they’re looking for and accomplish their goals without much hassle. 

When a website has good usability, visitors can easily navigate, find information, and complete tasks—whether that’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or finding contact information.

Poor usability doesn’t just affect the user experience—it directly impacts your bottom line through lower conversion rates, high drop-offs, decreased customer loyalty, and missed sales opportunities.

What is usability?

Usability indicates how easily users can interact with a website to do what they need to do. It’s about creating a user-friendly experience that meets the visitors’ needs without causing confusion or frustration.

Intuitive navigation, clear design, fast load times, and minimal errors are all examples of a website having good usability, aimed at reducing friction and delivering a seamless experience.

Usability is defined by five basic principles or ideas.

Learnability

This refers to the ease with which new visitors can understand the basic layout and structure of your website or mobile app. 

Learnability indicates whether first-time visitors can quickly understand your website’s layout and complete their intended tasks. 

Efficiency

This indicates whether visitors can accomplish specific goals or perform certain tasks, without much hassle. A website with good efficiency allows visitors to complete actions with minimum effort.

Memorability

This principle is key for returning users, as it defines whether they can quickly and easily remember how to use your website effectively.

If a user returns to your website after some gap, will they still remember where things are and how to do what they want? 

Or will they have to re-learn everything? 

Error handling 

Users often encounter unexpected errors on websites and apps. However, the way these errors are handled can determine whether the user will stay or leave your platform.

User-friendly websites prevent errors when possible and provide clear instructions for recovery when they occur.

Satisfaction

This indicates whether users enjoy interacting with your website, or they find it frustrating. 

User satisfaction is one of the most crucial elements of usability as it gives you a clear idea of whether or not users like to engage with your website.   

Why is usability important?

Usability directly affects your website’s performance and your business outcomes. When visitors can’t easily find what they’re looking for or become frustrated with your website, they leave. 

Also, such websites make it easier for visitors to complete desired actions, so they leave with a positive impression of your brand.  

Core components of website usability

Navigation and site structure

Having clear, and clutter-free navigation is crucial for guiding visitors along their journey on your website. 

Platforms with well-defined structures and easy-to-understand navigation make it easier for users to find what they need quickly.  

Page load speed

A slow-loading website increases user frustration and can also affect your rankings on Google and other search engines.  

Mobile-friendliness

Having a mobile-optimized website is necessary to cater to the ever-increasing traffic from smartphones and tablets.  

Mobile-friendly websites use responsive design to adjust their layout and content based on the user’s screen size, ensuring a consistent, seamless experience.

Readability and accessibility

A website may have a beautiful design and fast load times, but if users can’t read the content or navigate with assistive technologies, it fails the usability test. 

Using suitable contrasting colors and offering features like alt text can improve the readability and accessibility of your website, ensuring every person can use your website effectively.  

How to improve website usability

You might think your website is perfectly usable, but the only way to know for sure is to test it with real users, analyze how they interact with it, and identify pain points or opportunities for improvement.

Usability testing

Usability testing is a process where you observe real users engaging with your platform. The goal is to identify potential friction points and gain direct insights into how users navigate your site, what confuses them, and which areas need improvement. 

Testing can be done through structured tasks where participants attempt to complete specific actions, such as making a purchase or finding product details, allowing you to assess ease of use and efficiency.

Heatmaps

A heatmap offers a clear, visual representation of how users interact with a website. It is used to visually represent different user actions like taps, clicks, scrolls, and so on. 

By analyzing heatmaps, you can easily identify areas that receive the most engagement, and also pinpoint sections that users ignore. 

For instance, if important CTAs receive little interaction or users don’t scroll past a certain point, you may need to adjust the layout, button placement, or content to improve usability.

Session recordings

Session recordings capture real user interactions on your site, allowing you to replay and analyze browsing behavior. 

By watching these recordings, you can see exactly how users engage with your website, making it easier to identify common issues or pain points. 

On-page surveys

On-page surveys allow you to collect direct user feedback by asking visitors specific questions about their experience. 

Asking visitors directly about their experiences gives you a better chance of identifying issues that might not be obvious through analytics alone.

Form analysis

Asking users to fill up a form is one of the simplest ways to gather leads and nudge them towards a desired action. 

Form analysis helps track user interactions, such as where users drop off, how long they take to complete fields, and which fields cause frustration. 

Common usability mistakes to avoid

Even well-designed websites often contain usability issues that frustrate visitors. 

Here are some common mistakes to avoid.

Cluttered layouts

Users often feel overwhelmed by websites that have too many elements or offer a lot of different choices.

Instead, websites that embrace white space and focus on one primary action per page can be more effective in guiding users through the journey.

Inconsistent design

Using different styles, colors, or navigation patterns across your website creates confusion. Focus on maintaining some sort of consistency in design elements on your platform.

Forced registration

Requiring users to create an account before they can browse products or access basic information creates unnecessary friction.

Non-standard navigation

Using unconventional navigation patterns forces users to learn a new system instead of relying on familiar patterns.

Poor search functionality

Search features that don’t account for synonyms, typos, or natural language can leave users unable to find what they’re looking for.

How to measure the impact of usability improvements?

To determine whether your usability improvements are making a difference, you can track these relevant metrics before and after changes.

• Bounce rate
• Average session duration
• Pages per session 
• User satisfaction

Conclusion

Usability isn’t just a technical consideration—it’s a fundamental aspect of your website that directly impacts business success. When visitors can easily find what they’re looking for and complete tasks without frustration, everyone wins.

Start by addressing the most critical usability issues—those that directly impact your key conversion points or cause the most user frustration. 

Request a demo with VWO to explore features and capabilities that can help you improve the usability of your website and mobile app.