Web research gives 9 guidelines to improve user performance

Good, research-based information is very sparse concerning the design and development of effective Web sites. Few studies have tried to answer basic Web usability questions. One of these was published by Spool and his colleagues (1997). They tried to identify the design decisions that help, and those that hinder, users' attempts to find information in a large Web site. Some of their conclusions are:

1. Sites can be designed to facilitate either searching or browsing, but not both.
2. Most sites do not help users compare information.
3. Users did not seem to become familiar with the layout of sites (or develop useful mental models).
4. Well-designed frames did not hinder users. But they didn’t help users either.
5. Users preferred to scroll to the bottom of pages to press final buttons.
6. In-site search engines were not generally used; and when they were used, they didn’t improve search performance.
7. Text links were more important in these search tasks than graphic links.
8. The most difficult-to-use sites were more "graphically intense."
9. The best-liked sites were not the same as the most easily searched sites.

Web designers make daily design decisions with little guidance from research-based literature. Good studies, like this one, will help usability specialists make better initial decisions.

Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, Spool, J.M., Scanlon, T., Schroeder, W., Snyder, C. and DeAngelo, T. (1997), North Andover, MA: User Interface Engineering.