The World Usability Day, which is celebrated on the second Thursday of November every year, asserts the importance of Usability values in different sectors of human endeavour. Being observed on the 14th of November this year, the World Usability Day 2024 promotes the values of Virtual Healthcare, Electronic health records, and other health-related Technologies this year.
History Of World Usability Day
In November 2005, the User Experience Professional Association created World Usability Day. When the Association was founded in 1991, it had 50 members at first. By promoting User Experience Concepts, holding international conferences, publishing a journal called "Journal of Usability Studies (JUS)," publishing User Experience Magazine, and having 59 local chapters in 30 countries, the Association expanded to serve a global community of over 2400 professionals.
Significance of Usability
The concept of user experience was developed way back in Greek Civilization. The Greeks used the Ergonomics concept in designing Instruments and Workspaces in the early 5th century BC.
In modern times, the concept have evolved more elaborately. An American Industrial Engineer published an article called “Designing for People” in 1955 which sums up User Experience Design. In 1966, Disney hailed the first User Experience Designers in history.
2024 Theme
The theme of “Designing for a Better World” manifests in various ways. Architects and urban planners create accessible public spaces with features like ramps and tactile paving. Companies focus on eco-friendly product packaging to minimize waste. Software developers prioritize inclusive design for digital platforms, ensuring usability for diverse users. The theme of “Designing for a Better World” with a focus on usability, sustainability, and inclusivity can be seen in various contexts.
What Defines Usability in Web Design?
Usability is the measure of how effectively and easily a website can be learned, used and enjoyed by its visitors. Usability is essential for successful web design and development, as it directly influences a user’s experience and the likelihood of completing desired actions — like making a purchase or filling out a contact form.
The five components of usability include:
Learnability – How easily first-time users can navigate the website.
Efficiency – How quickly visitors can complete tasks once they know the website design.
Memorability – How easily users can re-familiarise themselves with the website after time away.
Errors – How frequently users encounter issues or make mistakes on the website, and how easily they can recover from these errors.
Satisfaction – How enjoyable the website experience is overall.
How Can We Improve Usability?
Improving usability is about ensuring every interaction on a website feels intuitive, simple and rewarding. As a key component of user experience (UX), usability focuses specifically on making a website easy to navigate and efficient to use. User Interface (UI) design plays a large role here, as it shapes the look and feel of each visual element and interaction that directly affects usability, like buttons, navigation and layout.
Here are some practical ways to enhance your website’s usability:
- Design clear, concise menus and labels so users can find what they need easily.
- Compress images, scripts and large files to keep pages loading quickly, which reduces bounce rates and keeps users engaged.
- Use clear, descriptive language and ensure labels, buttons and instructions are easy for all users to understand.
- Ensure your site is fully responsive so it performs smoothly across all devices, including phones and tablets.
- Incorporate high-contrast colours, alt text for images and keyboard navigation options to make the site inclusive and accessible for everyone.
- Test your website regularly and review feedback to identify and resolve any pain points.
World Usability Day Quotes
- Steve Jobs: "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."
- Charles Mingus: "Making the simple so complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity."
- Steve Krug: "Don't make me think."
- Antoine de St-Expurey: "A designer knows that he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away."
- Clement Mok: "Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most."
- Jakob Nielsen: "Usability rules the Web. Simply stated, if the customer can't find a product, then he or she will not buy it."
- Blake Ross: “The next big thing is the one that makes the last big thing usable.”
