Making the site easy to use

Some general design guidelines:

• Give users feedback about where they are. The most important questions are: "Where am I?" and "Where do I go next?". For example, if you want users to buy something, lead them through the buying process. Your page should identify which section it belongs to (support, products, freebies) and links to other pages should be clear
• Write in English not in jargon
• Give 'em a way out. They'll probably go to the wrong place and not know how to get back
• Be consistent with navigation to help users learn to use your site. Be consistent with links; always underline, or always highlight if you move the mouse over them, and so. Use wording consistently
• You'll often see inconsistent wording in links and titles. You may think you've gone to the wrong place if the destination page has a vastly different title to the link that took you there
• Understand the impact of download time on usability, especially for graphics and navigation. Generally, we like sites that load quickly
• Don't include irrelevant information. When users are trying to accomplish a task, they ignore other things on the page. Links and other information that are irrelevant are useless