Usability checklist

A small and useful usability checklist. Check your resource before proceeding to user testing. It does not pretend to be a “pillar of usability,” which must be followed, but quite useful things are collected here.

User experience

• Personalization The currency, language, country-specific moments, taxes and delivery options should vary depending on where the user is from. IP geolocation should not be enabled without user permission.
• Registration makes sense. For example, the button “free trial period” (free trial) is quite tangible, but there’s just no link to the registration form.
• "Transparent pricing." Prices are immediately visible, there are no "pitfalls", ala small price tags below, stars, footnotes, etc.
• Pages themselves are not updated. The user may be extremely surprised if, for example, a news suddenly pops up on a news site.
• The information on your site is reliable. There are no broken links, links lead to resources relevant to the topic, correct contacts (by which you can reach or find an office), photos of real people (who really are related to the topic of the site or its functioning) are posted on the site. Well, do not forget about high-quality design (I recall, the article is not about design, but about usability).
• Images should bring all the necessary information: it should be possible to enlarge the image and consider the details.

Homepage

Here it is certainly worth mentioning the disagreement in the titles of this paragraph. “Home page”, it is in most cases “Landing Page” (although not always), “start page” also refers to this page. Good article on Habré.

• A clear and clear call to action. The user knows what to do next and what benefits it will bring to him. The purpose and purpose of the site is clearly expressed.
• The name of the authorized user is displayed on the page. For example, not just “good afternoon sir”, but “good afternoon Ivan”.
• All major changes are announced on the home page.
• Contact and company information (location) should be easily accessible from the home page.
• Privacy policy. If your site collects user information, this should be said on the home page.
• All images and videos have a very specific meaning and purpose. No obscure stock photos of top models. Only high quality photos and videos relevant to your business. Video and sound effects should not automatically play unless the user expects this (notify the visitor of the start of the video or ringtone).
• The URL should work without the www prefix.

Availability

• Alt attributes should be specified for non-text blocks such as images and maps. Signatures and transcriptions are desirable for audio and video elements.
• Color alone is not used to convey information.
• The text remains readable after disabling styles. Useful link to check.
• Accessible navigation. It is possible to navigate the site without a mouse using only the keyboard. All special keyboard shortcuts used for navigation are not hidden from the user.
• Avoid using Flash, at the moment you can do without it (I hope for a correct understanding of this point).
• Links, buttons, checkboxes click easily. For example, a user can mark a checkbox by clicking on the text related to this item.

Navigation

• Important links are not placed in dynamic (spinning, spinning) elements.
• Avoid alphabetical sorting where possible. Use grouping by categories or other important parameters. Good article on this subject (in English).
• The user must know where he is located, on which page, in which section. Here, beloved bread crumbs help everyone.
• Navigation is always constant, does not change from page to page.
• The link is informative and indicates where exactly it leads based on the topic and content. Not just “tyrts” or “click here”
• The description of the site is in the title window, thereby making the site easy to bookmark and not forget about what it is.
• The site URL is easy to remember. And of course it’s always worth using Humanoid URLs.

Search

• The site has a search, unless of course the site consists of two pages.
• Search is on every page, and not just on the home page.
• The search field allows you to see what is written there.
• Search is a field, not a link to a separate page.

References

• Important actions are indicated by buttons, not links. For example, “buy” or “pay” should be buttons, not links.
• Links do not open in a new browser window, or tab, unless it is of course a pdf file (a good article in English about this).
• Links are easily recognizable. By their appearance it’s clear that they are clickable. Other elements should not look like links, for example, underlined text should be avoided.
• Already visited links are displayed in a different color than unvisited links.
• There should be no broken links (you can check on this resource ).

Layout aka markup

• Important content is placed first.
• The site is responsive. Works on screens of various sizes. There should not be horizontal scrolling (horizontal scrolling).
• Related information is placed logically in one place.
• The minimum number of pop-ups.
• Page layout should have the same structure.
• The site page is not "littered", there is a sufficient amount of air on the page.

Process

• Bug Tracking System (Issue tracker). necessary for resolving controversial issues in the field of Usability / UX.
• User testing was carried out on target groups and at different stages of the project. It is advisable not to involve in the user testing those people who participated in the development of your resource.
• A priority. Changes are made in accordance with their priority. Do not forget to take into account such important points as the objectives of the project, budget, deadlines, composition of performers, etc.
• ROI (return on investment) changes. We consider the cost of the site before the start of the creation process and after.

Forms

• Simplicity. Only the most necessary questions are asked in your forms.
• Huge drop down menus should be avoided. To resolve this point, you can use the field that will be validated on the server and return results as it is filled. So long drop-down lists lead to inconvenient scrolling.
• There is an input format. For example, phone numbers and credit cards.
• Fields for filling are signed with corresponding tags. For example, address, name (support autocomplete).
• Do not forget about the confirmation of the form.
• A popup error message should appear next to the field in which the error was made.

Content

• Contrast. The background and text on it should contrast. You can use this service for verification.
• We divide the content, the indents between paragraphs and parts of the text are clearly visible, the headings are easy to read.
• The content is written in a language that is understandable to the user, there is no overload of sentences. Interesting service note - www.read-able.com
• Company contact information is readable and distinguishable. Clicking by email does not open the mail application (Outlook and the like) automatically.
• The content is really useful and answers the basic questions of the user, it should also be relevant. There are no long instructions and welcome messages ala "Welcome to our site."
• Using uppercase inside the text is highly undesirable.

Please make a note that this topic is a translation. Thanks to userium.com