Usability - What every product owner must know!

When it comes to usability of your product, its usually be carried out by subjective opinions of developers, designers and product managers. How highly skilled they are, some of fundamental facts are often missed during those product design discussions.

I recently got a chance to read a book "Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability By Steve Krug". The author reveals lot of so obvious common sense lessons. Few points to ponder yourself. 

• Don’t Make Me Think!
• When it comes to software, people often do not want think too much to accomplish something. For anyone its quite embarrassing to admit as dumb, they wont be interested visit your product next time. The page should be as much self-explanatory as possible [like traffic signs]   
• Your goal should be for each page to be self-evident, so that just by looking at it the average user will know what it is and how to use it.
• We don’t read pages. We scan them.
• Reduce as much words as possible. 
• We don’t make optimal choices. We satisfy.
• The is no single BEST way to accomplish a thing on web. We try to find how to get things done and stick with that even though that's not a best approach. 
• We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle through.
• We take lot of guess work. click here and if it does not work, click somewhere else. 
• Users Like mindless choices 
• Create clear visual hierarchy 
• Easy as organized as library. 
• Use Conventions and commonly used vocabulary wherever applicable 
• Use Job instead of employment etc. 
• Breakup pages to clearly defined areas 
• As per the domain. For example, how a cook would arrange the kitchen selves. 
• Make it obvious what is clickable 
• Link or button
• Keep the noise down to dull roar.
• No mess around. Simple
• Omit Needless words 
• Example, Google search button. By looking at it, everyone knows what to do. 
• Happy Talk must die 
• No need for introductions, mission, goal statement, welcome message etc 
• Instructions must die 
• Gone are the days to have help menu, mouse overs etc 
• Page Navigation should be modelled like navigating a mall
• Easy to reach home [Home page] in a click from wherever you are. 
• Design breadcrumbs to explicitly tell user how far he is gone from home page 
• What Home page should consist?
• Site Identity and mission - what is it and why i should be here.
• Site Hierarchy - what i can do here. 
• Search - Single most important thing in home page 
• Teases - promos, upcoming events etc 
• Timely content - any special news NOW 
• Deals  - if any 
• Short-cuts 
• Registration - 
• Show me what I am looking for?
• Show me where to start ?
• Establish credibility and trust 
• Most web design team arguments about usability are waste of time. Instead conduct usability test with targeted audience and get the objective results