At conferences, a frequent question I get is “What is the best website?” or “What is the most usable website?” When faced with this question, it’s always difficult for me to give a direct answer. The reason? I don’t think there is one.
Usually In response to that question, I take the Socratic Method, asking, “For what?” For every website I’ve seen I can point out at least a few things that could be a minor or major usability issue (guess because it’s my job), but a usable website goes far beyond the best practices and minimal standards and heuristics that I can assess from looking at a website for five minutes.
Not One Size Fits All
If I tell people that site “XYZ” is a good website, I’ll end up seeing a hundred “XYZ” copy-cats coming back and asking me why their conversion rates are not higher and why their customers are not finding the site easier to use, even though all they did was slap their logo on site “XYZ” design.
The reason for this is because the factors that make one website usable may not necessarily work for another website (excluding the minimal standards and best practices). We like to refer to the minimal standards and best practices as the foundation for the site, but user testing is what refines the site and makes it unique and usable for that site’s specific users. The foundation is of course is extremely important, but the refinement is what sets the site apart from others. However, one without the other results in an incomplete site, which explains why taking the foundation from one site and implementing it into another does not magically result in a usable website.
Every website has different goals and different audiences, and building a website without considering these factors is a flawed but common mistake. It is important to determine the personas of users visiting your site and to tailor the nomenclature, information architecture, design, functionality, and content to these audiences.
Technology and People Change
Another reason why one website will never be the “most usable website” is because technology and people’s experience with technology is ever evolving. Ten years ago we were concerned with 800 x 600 pixel monitor resolutions, “web safe” colors, frames, scrolling text, blue hyperlinks, and pop-up windows.
Some of these concerns still exist today, but technology has advanced to a point where 800 x 600 is no longer the norm, and “web safe” colors are not really a concern. Online behavior and experience has reduced the need for links to be blue (they can just be a distinct color), and pop-up windows are actually preferred for non-web documents such as PDFs (Jakob Nielsen, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/open_new_windows.html).
Designer and developer awareness of usability has also almost completely eliminated the use of frames and scrolling text on the web. It is because of these reasons that usability focuses have changed over the years and will continue to in the future.
Do you think there is a website that is “perfect” in terms of usability?
I read some article on your blogs. content on this blog is very good. Thanks to share.
One thing i want to say. in you blog articles ,you are relying on color alone for hyperlinks. it will be difficult to find link in B&W screen and for people with color blindness.
I would prefer to keep underline always, not only on hover.