Software usability, including online stores, is an aspect of design that has a profound effect on how users experience your store. Characteristics of good usability are attributes such as intuitive, easy to use, and natural. These desirable characteristics are achieved with position of buttons, use of color and font, design of navigation, hints, explanations, and icons, layout, and workflows. They must all in a natural way render functionality that the software is designed to provide. One way to describe what is good usability is to describe what it is not: User is having hard time finding controls to accomplish tasks. Controls have too many states that are hard to understand. User is after few clicks lost and does not know where he is on the site. Pages load slowly. There is lack of consistency and multiple paradigms are present on different pages. Needles to say, poor usability leads users to become frustrated and they leave the site thus lowering conversion.
Besides the elements above, an online store must follow certain conventions that visitors are already used to from other stores. Home page, product detail, cart and checkout need to be particularly well designed. for example, it is estimated that 60% of visitors who leave the site do so at checkout. Many visitors bounce as soon as they hit the home page. Maybe its to much text and not enough images, or the page gives certain impression that is not of high quality, or there just isn't anything interesting to go on.
All custom made software must be tested for usability. Same goes for when shop owners make changes to themes. There are two factors why developers and creators are not good usability testers. 1. They know too much and cannot see anymore the site as the new visitor does and 2. As professionals, they are most likely already familiar with the paradigm and it is therefore easier for them to figure out how to use even a software they see for the first time. These facilitate the need to test software, apps, and shops for usability independently by a third party.
There are different usability test methods.
1. A heuristic review is done when a trained professional goes over the site and applies his analytical skill to identify trouble areas and recommend the improvements. It is his knowledge of the domain and experience with similar sites that allow him to see what is done wrong.
2. User testing is when a group of would be users are given tasks to perform on the site and they are observed by professionals how are they doing it. This is a good way to see how users will experience the site and where they have problems. This review is more involved and takes longer, dependent on the number of users doing the tests.
To finish this post, I want to do it with a quote by a foremost authority in usability testing who summarized the desired user experience into: Don't make e think! When the software, store or an app feels natural and easy to follow that is when usability is being achieved.
