Newsletter issue #28 - 3rd July 2006
This issue
Hello and welcome to the July edition of the Webcredible newsletter!
In this issue:
- Feature article: Intranet usability guidelines
- Top tip: Improve your contact page
- Useful program: The Scrutinizer
- Top link: This Is Broken
- New articles in June
- Webcredible news in June
Enjoy!
Feature article: Intranet usability guidelines
Intranets are one of the most valuable assets for any large organisation. They can, after all, help people do their jobs better and more efficiently, yet so many intranets offer such poor usability. Follow these guidelines and help your employees find what they're looking for more quickly and easily.
Read this article in full at www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/intranet-usability.shtml.
Top tip: Improve your contact page
For non-transactional sites, getting users to visit the contact page and ultimately get in touch with you can be the main goal of the website. It's amazing how many sites make this difficult to do, thereby reducing the number of people who contact you and ultimately reducing sales. Here are three tips to improve this on your website (provided that getting users to contact you is your primary goal):
- Make the contact page easy to find First of all, make sure that you do actually call the link, 'contact us' and not something less conventional such as 'get in touch' or 'enquiries'. Then, place the link at the very end of the main navigation menu (on the right for horizontal menus and at the bottom for vertical menus) so that it's not hidden away in the middle of the navigation menu.
- Actively encourage contact When users do make it to the contact page, be sure to encourage them to actually contact you. Ensure the contact form contains as few fields as possible as the fewer fields there are the more likely users are to fill it in (do you really need to get their address?). A friendly opening statement on the page can also help to persuade people to get in touch: 'We'd love to hear from you - get in touch for a no obligation chat!'
- Provide different ways of contact Ensure the contact page, at the very minimum, offers a phone number, an e-mail address and a contact form. Some people prefer to speak with a real person, so the phone number is of course crucial. Some users will use the form as it's convenient and they may not have quick access to their e-mail client on the computer they're using. Others may prefer to send messages via e-mail as they'll have a record of the e-mail and can be more confident that the message was actually sent (they can achieve both of these by looking in their sent folder)
Useful program: The Scrutinizer
The Scrutinizer is a handy tool that allows you to 'scrutinize' any web page. Simply type in a URL and you'll instantly be able to see how that web page stands up against over 50 online validators.
You can use this program at www.scrutinizer.phileplanet.com.
Top link: This Is Broken
This Is Broken is a fantastic collection of major bloopers across the Internet. The large-scale usability issues it showcases are often the fault of technology trying to be too clever for its own good!
Check out this great site at www.thisisbroken.com.
New articles in June
Read these and many other articles at www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources.
Webcredible news in June
- Lisa Halabi becomes new head of usability
- Webcredible out and about in June
- New Webcredibles comic strip now online
Read these news stories in full at www.webcredible.co.uk/about-us/latest-news.shtml.
Training courses
Courses continue to sell out well in advance! Our next training courses will take place in our training centre in Aldgate, London in July and September:
- Usability testing training - Monday 17th July. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our usability testing training page.
- Writing for the web training - Tuesday 18th July & Tuesday 5th September. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our writing for the web training page.
- Web usability training - Wednesday 19th July & Wednesday 6th September. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our web usability training page.
- Web accessibility training - Thursday 20th July & Thursday 7th September. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our web accessibility training page.
- Advanced CSS training - Friday 21st July & Friday 8th September. For more information and to reserve your place before it fills up please consult our advanced CSS training page.
About Webcredible
Based in London, UK, Webcredible is a user experience consultancy. Tailor-made usability, accessibility & design solutions include:
- User-centered design
- Accessible web design
- CMS services
- Usability
- Accessibility
- Training
- Website review lite
Please contact us on 0870 242 6095 or info at webcredible.co.uk, or consult www.webcredible.co.uk for further information.