Site Usability Checklist

• Logo - upper left corner and prominent
• Tag Line - concise description of what the site is about and value to user
• Emphasize Core Tasks - conspicuous location for controls used to select important tasks
• Homepage - clearly identified as official starting page from all other pages on the site. No opening staging pages
• About - info on the corporation/project
• Contact Us - phone numbers and email addresses
• Customer Focused Language - use labels and words that have the most meaning to the customer
• Style Standards - consistency in layout, capitalization and general writing style
• Abbreviations & Acronyms - efi (expand first instances)
• Reveal Content - use examples if possible instead of descriptions
• Archiving - recent content or searches should be available
• Links - descriptive names (no click here) and color set for different states (link, visited, hover, active)
• Navigation - instantly visible labeling containing similarly grouped items. Link to current page deactivated
• Site Search - input box at top right on homepage
• Graphics - decorate construction, never construct decoration (Pugin)
• Scrolling - no horizontal scroll at 1024x768, most critical elements initially visible without vertical scroll
• Text - limit font styles but use easily distinguishable styles and sizes to emphasize differences on a high contrast background
• Window Titles - company name (do not include ".com" "welcome to.." or "homepage") with short tag line
• URLs - simple to remember and should work with or without prepending www
• News - succinct clickable headline that conveys information (not just copy). Include a "freshness" date
• Ads - on the periphery, clearly labeled and identifiable as advertising
• Site Downtime - scheduled maintenance notification. Custom 404 error page that includes site navigation
• Registration - give short compelling reason/benefit for signing up

Jakob's Law of the Internet User Experience: Users spend most of their time on other websites.