Usability
With the ever increasing volume of online content site owners can ill afford to risk losing potential customers to a more usable site. As web standards continue to increase users are less likely to remain at a site they find hard to use. For every £1 invested in usability, websites can make returns of between £10 and £100.
Consistent navigation and page layout across a site helps users to quickly find what they are looking for. It is also important to allow users to navigate sites in the way they normally would, for example any links opened in a new window produce difficulties for the 60% of web users who navigate using the back button.
Because websites are read differently to printed material, internet users are drawn to text first rather than being drawn to images. This emphasising the need to separate layout from content and allow users to access the information they are looking for as quickly as possible.
