Noted web usability expert Jakob Nielsen recently described results from a recent user skill study on his website.  This study examines business-to-business (B2B) websites for their presence or lack of usability principles.  The study also monitors the habits of influential web users, such as business professionals and doctors, to determine how user actions have changed over time.

Here are seven observations from Nielsen’s research that business website owners should consider when examining their own websites:

  1. Email newsletters remain a highly-effective way to bring visitors back to websites. Many professionals indicate their sole reason for visiting a site is due to a newsletter they’ve been emailed (after signing-up for it, of course).  Business websites that are not offering email subscription options should definitely considering adding this feature.
  2. Avoid opening lots of new browser windows. Although users can usually handle extra windows that they’ve opened themselves, relatively few like dealing with a new windows opened by the computer.  One reason is the Back button appears to suddenly stop working; in the new window there’s nothing to go “back” to.  Business websites should avoid the practice of purposefully opening new browser windows whenever possible. 
  3. Links that do not change after a user clicks on them.  This is a point of basic courtesy, really.  Visitors to your site want to know what they’ve seen and what they haven’t.  Changing the color or style of links that have been visited is a simple and effective way of communicating with the user.  Sites that make all links appear the same create confusion and make users unsure about what they’ve already seen on a site.  Is this how you want to treat your potential customers?
  4. Splash screens and intros are incredibly annoying.  Users immediately begin looking for the “skip intro” button, and IF they can find it often leave.  Here’s a great excerpt from Nielsen’s post:

    “One user wanted to buy custom-tailored shirts and first visited Turnbull & Asser because of their reputation. Clicking the appropriate link led to a page where a video started to play without warning and without a way to skip it and proceed directly to actual info about the service. The user watched a few seconds; got more and more agitated about the lack of options to bypass the intro, and finally closed down the site and went to a competitor. Customer lost.”

  5. Show users the way Home.  Many visitors don’t realize, although it is becoming more and more common, that clicking a website’s logo often returns them to the homepage.  Therefore it is still a good practice to include an explicit “home” link on all interior pages (meaning all but the homepage, of course).
  6. Still Getting Too Personal:  Nielsen found people are still very wary, sometimes more so than in the past, about giving out personal information.  Websites (especially business-to-business, or B2B sites) are prone to ask visitors to register before they have sufficiently committed to the site.  In order to gain the visitor’s trust (and with it the registration), websites must take the first step:  Provide valuable content with no “strings” attached, or offer something of greater valuable (a downloadable report, coupons, etc.) as a thank-you for subscribing or registering.  Online, as in the real world, the cliche “You get what you give” still applies.
  7. (Sc)roll with the punches:  Don’t get cute with vertical scrollbars on your website; non-standard ones are often overlooked, causing people to miss the rest of the site’s offerings.  Sites with horizontal scrollbars should strongly reconsider their design to eliminate their need.  Similarly, other research has shown that very few visitors bother to scroll at all – most of their attention is focused on the area “above the fold” (the area viewable without scrolling), and good web design principles can position messages with minimal scrolling.

Businesses that find these issues on their own websites are likely losing potential customers and should work with their web designer to correct these (and other potential) issues to avoid further loss of potential interest.

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