Usability Best Practices
Here are some important best practices to consider when creating a usable web design:
Images
• No busy backgrounds
• Minimize the use of imagery so the page loads quickly
• Keep graphical text to a minimum
Text
• No text over background images
• No white text on black backgrounds
• No large text blocks
• Use web-safe fonts (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica, Tacoma)
• Make sure that text line length is not too long
• Text size should be 10 or above
• Avoid dense content and un-scannable text
Navigation
• Navigation should be at the top horizontal or left vertical of the page
• Make the navigation obvious
• Logo should be top left and link to the homepage
• There should be a bottom horizontal nav repeating main navigational items
• Maintain navigational consistency throughout the site
• Make links look like links (i.e. underlined)
• Links should change color once visited
• Make sure user can orient themselves on the site at all times
• Avoid dropdown menus
General Layout
• Avoid internal scrolling if possible
• Keep important information above the fold
• Remember that users might come to the site through an internal page
• Avoid design elements that might look like outside advertising (users have banner blindness)
• No horizontal scrolling
• Keep consistent layout throughout the site (homepage is the exception)
• Use white space
• Separate logical content into buckets