You leave your images out,
You put your images back in,
And shake it all about,
You think about usability
And turn your XHTML inside out,
That's what good web design is all about!
(A short song about usability)
Usability is "a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal."
Considering this defenition, it's possible to come up with a classification of usability that relates specifically to the internet.
First off, our particular tool or other human-made object is clearly a website.
Our particular goal could range from a lead to a sale: the website owner is the goal decider, but for the purpose of this article, we will class our goal as a sale.
Essentially, it's necessary to design your website to be compatible with a number of different browsers in order to make the most of your online campaign. If usability is not considered when you're in the process of designing your website, your online marketing campaign may never reach its full potential.
There are a variety of different browsers available for use with different devices.
5 of the Most Popular Browsers are:
- Internet Explorer
- Mozilla Firefox
- Opera
- Netscape
- Safari
Internet Explorer is the winner by far, as it is the default browser for the Microsoft Windows platform, holding a 70 per cent share of all PC users. Mozilla Firefox is the next most popular browser with the web development industry, and is fast closing the gap on Internet Explorer's lead - as a recent study by bigmouthmedia revealed.
But what are the four most popular media platforms that use these browsers? It's essential to ask such a question since so many web users employ different types of media to browse the web. If your website is 'usable' on a different media platform, you may be missing out on a large chunk of traffic.
It's obvious that the most popular media device is the PC. The PC is what the internet was designed for and most websites are likely to be PC-friendly. But how well does your website perform in terms of usability for a device other than the PC?
The second most popular media platform for surfing the internet is the mobile phone. Many web designers make the common mistake of not coding their site in XHMTL and CSS. XHTML and CSS can be used to semantically structure a website and, when used correctly, it resembles a hierarchical structure - distinctly different to the tabular structure of HTML - that can be highly beneficial for usability.
Using CSS, you're able to apply different styles to HTML mark-up, depending on the phone. This then adds to your site's usability, as you can efficiently target users that use PCs and mobile phone devices. The mobile phone industry has continued to boom over recent years; and it is predicted that mobile internet surfers will catch up with PC surfers within the next two years. This represents a very large number of users that could potentially translate into a sale.
The third most popular media device is the PDA. A Personal Digital Assistant is another form of hand held device, similar to the mobile phone. PDAs are most commonly used in the business world, and offer handheld personal computer capabilities that allow you to store names and addresses, create spreadsheets and take advantage of wireless technologies.
Because PDAs have wireless capabilities, they are often used to check e-mails and browse the internet. For instance, if you're a businessman with a PDA and you're keen to find transport home after a business meeting, you'll be able to use your PDA to go online and book train tickets, find taxi cab numbers or check plane times. Additionally, if you need to book a hotel in the event of an unexpected overnight stay, the ability to do so is at the tip of your fingers.
The fourth most popular platform to view the internet is the games console. Nintendo and PlayStation consoles, for instance, possess internet capabilities: the Nintendo Wii uses a version of the Opera Web browser called Internet Channel and the Sony PlayStation uses a version of the NetFront browser.
Millions of people worldwide own such games consoles and, because they have internet capabilities, there will be a large number of users who will use such devices to browse the internet. Last week, Sony announced that the Sony PSP will allow users to make face-to-face calls over the internet, after plans were unveiled to release a camera and microphone for the system.
All devices that can be used to browse the internet are potential means of creating a sale, lead or a return visit. Usability plays a large part in any internet marketing campaign and it must be taken into account for all internet capable devices. The wider the saturation of your internet marketing campaign, the greater the number of users you're likely to attract. Therefore, before designing a website, consider how well your site will render across all media platforms.
