What makes a website easy to use?

The well-organised shop

Think about a well-organised shop. You walk in and can immediately see where different sections are. The products are labelled clearly. The checkout is obvious. Nobody needs to explain how it works. You might not notice any of this if it is done well, but you would notice immediately if the shop had no signage, products were shelved at random, and the till was hidden round a corner.

A website works the same way. When navigation is clear, pages are where visitors expect to find them, and the next step is always obvious, people move through it without friction. When any of those things are unclear, they stop and think. And when people have to stop and think, some of them leave. Understanding the different types of friction that create those moments is a useful next step.

What easy actually looks like

A site that is easy to use has a small number of clearly labelled navigation options. It has a headline on every key page that tells the visitor what the page is about and whether they are in the right place. Text is a readable size on a mobile phone without zooming. Pages load quickly. The main action on each page, whether that is calling, buying, or filling in a form, is visible without having to scroll past a wall of content to find it.

None of these things are complicated. But each one requires a conscious decision to keep things simple rather than adding more. The instinct when building a website is to add, not remove. The instinct of a visitor navigating it is to follow the path of least resistance.

Common ways sites make things harder than they need to be

The most frequent cause of a site feeling hard to use is too many options. A navigation bar with too many items. A homepage that tries to introduce every product or service at once. A contact page that offers several different ways to get in touch with no guidance on which to choose. Every extra option is a small extra burden on the visitor.

Language that makes sense internally but means nothing to a customer is the other common issue. Job titles used as navigation labels. Product names that are meaningful to the business but opaque to someone hearing them for the first time. A form with fields the visitor does not understand the purpose of. Ease of use is partly about design, but it is just as much about the words. A UX audit looks at both.