The Internet is no longer a child in the mind's eye. For the most part, people know what they want and how to get to there. As one browses the Internet, there is an expectation from the client that any page they come to will allow them easy access and browsing capabilities. If a site gets to be cumbersome, the inpatient and the patient will quickly move on to the next search link to find what the information they seek. There are several different types of sites, but for the most part this paper concerns designing a site that will allow a user to find the information in the easiest and most fluid of means. To that end, I offer some simple usability rules to follow.

The first such consideration begins with the design process. To begin with, one should clearly define the goals of the Web site. This includes determining some user requirements as well a making sure the site meets the expectations of any potential visitor. One should also consider setting usability goals and providing information the visitor will consider useful. One of the best ways to achieve a successful site is to consider many different options for user interaction. One way to achieve a great site is to have several people provide input for design options. From there, examine each proposal and select the best ideas from each. Things to consider during this process are providing the appropriate content, understanding a user's expectations and provide a way to meet those expectations, find out what users might require from your site, make performance a top consideration above a personal preference for design and set goals around the performance of the site.

Content may be the most important element of a web site. To be sure, the information the site provides should engage the visitor, but also be relevant to the people visiting the site. One of the best ways to find out what is relevant is to approach potential users to find out what information they would expect to find. This will help the designer better understand what requirements the users expect. If the design meets the expectations of the user, or visitor, the site is well on its way to being successful. It is to this end, that performance of the site should be much more important than a personal preference of the design. Remember, the designer knows how to navigate the site, the user will be expecting the site to flow a certain way based on past experiences. Thus, it is not the designer who determines the success of the flow, it is the user. One could provide the best available information, but if the user can not easily navigate the site to find the pertinent information they seek, the site is not successful. These types of goals and determining a method to achieve them should be defined before actually designing the site.

Once the design and evaluation process has been completed, the designer should consider how to best optimize the experience of those who end up at their site. The site should, in some fashion, offer the most efficient means of the visitor's interaction. Attempts should be made to reduce the responsibility of visitors to force their way to finding the information they need from the site. If the information is displayed in a format that is useable and when the order of content makes sense, the visitor will be able to make the most out of their visit.

Some of the items to consider are how to create a site that may be similar to how a visitor normally works. Make the order of tasks consistent and don't add terminology a visitor has to look up for clarification. Of primary importance is to avoid information overload. Another thing to consider in the item is wait time. A visitor shouldn't have to wait very long, maybe a few seconds, for pages to load. And the most recent of all deterrents to visitors is the unwanted pop up window. The designer shouldn't force unwanted and unnecessary windows on the visitors. Truly if the site is an informational site, the preference would be to find information in a manner as if they were breezing through a catalog, and not have fifty other catalog pages dropped onto the page they are reading.

The designer should not only consider, but make all the navigation options or sequences the same. Once a visitor navigates through one section of the site, it is now familiar to them and a consistent behavior through the site, will offer an efficient means for them to stay and find what information they seek. An example would be that most sites have menus to the left of the page and sometimes across the top. If on one of the pages of a site, the menu moved to the right, then to the bottom, then back to the left, a visitor might just close the page and search somewhere else. Most people look for consistencies and it doesn't require the visitor to look for menus if they are all in the same place.

That leads to the next rule for usability. Page Layout is very important. All of the pages of the site should be structured in the same manner. The designer should consider things like white space and text formats. Too much white space may require scrolling or imply there isn't enough information, while too little may make your site design look cluttered. Text formatting is important because a visitor needs to be able to easily read the information. Having to squint or zoom to view the text or even if the text is too large or brightly colored will have an impact on whether visitor stay on the site. An appropriate text size and font will help facilitate line lengths that are the most efficient. Most people find that a longer line will result in faster reading, but short line lengths are generally preferred. This brings up the idea a good page length. What is an appropriate page length? Does a visitor mind scrolling? The answer really might be a preference, but a design rule to follow is that pages should be long enough to display the information but before scrolling becomes the issue (I know, not very definitive of an answer). A suggestion here would be when the information is so much that scrolling is required, but the designer wants the menu to always be visible, frame pages would be appropriate. This will allow the user to scroll through the information but not have to scroll back up to change pages.

Another important consideration when designing a site is something often overlooked in today's world of high speed anywhere access to the Internet. The designer must consider what types of hardware and software the visitor's to the site may use. The designer must not create a site for the fastest computer using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Not everyone is using an Intel M dual core with a gigabyte of RAM and a high speed connection. One should consider designing their site around a standard computer with a dial up connection. A standard view resolution to consider is 800 x 600. However, it would be rather difficult to design a site for every possible user, so the suggestion here would be to design the site for your primary target market with consideration for a secondary audience as well. This consideration will help your site be more effective.

So, how do you draw this audience to your web site? An important idea of getting traffic to your site is get it in the top of the search listings. Searching is one of the most important ways people find their way around the web. The Page Title is the main tool in getting new visitor from the search listings. The page title is located within the HTML "title" tag and is usually used as the linked headline on the search result page. A key point to remember is that it is the first sixty-six characters of the title are the characters displayed by the search engines. The suggestion would be to put your company name and a brief description in the title of the home page, and for the other pages of your site, the designer might consider starting the title with a few of the most important keywords specific to the information on those pages.

Now the visitor has found the site, how do you keep them there? There are several tips for keeping people interested in your site as a useful bed of information. The first thing to consider is writing the pages for viewing, not for printing. The reason, straight text, with little or no interaction is often boring and intimidating. More importantly, it can be quite boring. These suggestions are offered to improve the readability of your site.

• Subheadings
• Bulleted lists
• Highlighted keywords
• Shorter paragraphs

Navigating this newly created and easy to use web site is now pretty good. However, people want to know where they have been. An important error to avoid is not showing the visitor where they've been. Not only do people want to know where they can go on your site and what information they can find, the need to know where they have been already. It is an important time factor to consider. The suggestion, ensure you change the color of visited links. This is most commonly done by changing links from blue to purple once a visitor has gone to the linked page. This will save the user from wasting time going back to places they have already been.

Another consideration in regards to links. One is the 404 page. If a user tries to get to a page on your site which is not available the page should be informative and even offer a link page to you home page. Secondly, if the designer adds links which may take the visitor away from your site, consider using a new browser window. This does not fall into the unwanted new window category as it allows the user to close out the new window and return to your site if the information does not meet the needs or expectations of the visitor.

Lastly, consider testing the usability of the new site. It would be beneficial for potential visitors to interact with the site and provide feedback. This will provide the designer the opportunity to better the site based on user's feedback in the areas of performance, speed and satisfaction. After making any changes, have the site tested again. The general rule is the more it is tested, the better the site. The site should be tested in several different browsers for compatibility. Check out these the Browser Results Tests

1. Wrapper width, margins, borders, padding and background
2. Header border, height, padding, text align, background
3. Content Divisions = 3 margins, padding bottom, borders, float
4. Footer text align, font size and color
5. H1 color and font style size and strength (bold)
6. H2 color, font and size
7. H3 color font-family, weight and spacing
8. A color
9. A visited
10. A hover
11. P font family, weight and size
12. P first letter size and color
13. "Span first child is highlighted yellow"
14. Random Image Rotator on Content Page
15. Date and Time scroll across the bottom of the page bar- visible in IE and Mozilla Sea Monkey
16. Information ticker offered at the bottom of the page

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1. Top 10 Usability Recommendations for Statewide Websites http://www.illinoislegalaidonline.org, October 2003.
2. Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design. http://www.useit.com. 2006. Jakob Nielsen
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