Top Signs of Good Web Usability

by Dan Bailey

Over the years I’ve given web and branding advise to a number of companies, as well as having designed and built client websites. Lately, I’ve noticed a number of corporate sites to be, in my opinion, too-narrowly focused. These are sites which actually profess their own brand names well and use deep-niche, industry relevant terminology. When visiting these home pages, one is immediately immersed into the companies’ focuses and advanced, vertical markets’ vernacular. Search engine results (the most-clicked search terms to the website) reveal the same. Such sites may serve well to existing customers but are missing opportunities at the mouth of the marketing funnel. These sites aren’t optimally serving and capturing prospects – industry new-comers beginning their crucial journey toward purchase.

That said, here are my fundamental criteria behind judging and managing websites (click image for legibility):

Try rating your own website against these criteria on a scale of 1 to 5 for each aspect (where 5 is high, 35 total points would be 100%, 28 total points would be 80%).

Want more material to gauge a site’s quality of user experience? Here is a home page usability competitive analysis done by Scott Quarterman (co-founder of Surge Labs), during a website restructuring project I contracted and directed him on (click image for legibility):