Usability is Important for You to Achieve Your Purpose

All sites are created for a particular purpose. Some were created so that their owners can sell something. Others are information resources (like thesitewizard.com). Still others are designed to showcase their owner's talents (such as sites displaying the owner's resumes and portfolios). The usability of your site is important to help you achieve that purpose. The basic question that you need to address when dealing with usability is: can your visitors easily access the information they need so that they can do the stuff that you want them to do? There are quite a number of things involved in this question.

Is the information that  Web Development Companies visitors need to make informed decisions available on your site? For example, before they can buy a product, they will want to know more about that product. A brief one-line summary about your product's features may work for your main page, but you will probably find that you get more buyers if you can provide a link to a page that gives a detailed list of features of each of your products.
Information Accessibility. Not only must your information be available to your visitors, it must be easily accessible. A page that gives a detailed description of your products is not going to help your visitors if they have to work hard at finding it. In fact, my experience is that if visitors have to work at finding something on your site, they are not going to find it. Either put the information right under their noses, or put a link to it in that place.

A good navigational system for your website is crucial. A navigational system is one by which visitors can move from one page to another. For example, on thesitewizard.com, one way in you can access the main pages on the site is to use the navigation buttons on the left column of the page. There are a few features to a good navigational system: If you are using navigation bar or panel, standardize its location on all the pages of your website. Don't make your visitors feel as though they are embarking on a treasure hunt every time they reach a new page. In addition to your navigation bar or panel, provide short-cuts to places where visitors are likely to want to go. Don't force your visitors to have to go through your main page (or your site map) every time they need to visit another page on your site. In fact, put direct links in logical places - for example, on your "Products" page, you should have a links to your "Buy / Order" page as well as links to the pages with detailed information about individual products. Think like a visitor and ask yourself what are the things a visitor might want to know or do when he/she is at a particular page. A good navigation system must be usable by all your visitors. As a result, try to avoid things that are dependent on certain facilities or features being available. For example, don't make your menu dependent on a specific browser. If your menu is JavaScript-driven, make sure that you have an alternative facility available for people who do not have JavaScript enabled. If your site has a large number of pages, a site search engine will improve your site's usability. Not everyone mentally organizes information the way you do. Hence a logical arrangement to you may not be logical to another person. Giving your visitors a way to search your web site will help them locate what they want. I discuss the use of a search engine for your site in my article How to Put a Search Engine On Your Site at 3 Ways of Putting a Search Engine on Your Website (thesitewizard.com) It's always good to have a Site Map, unless your site has only a few pages. This allows people to have another route to the other pages on your site. It also helps search engines locate all the pages on your site, particularly if you use dynamically-generated links to your pages (like JavaScript-created links).