accessibility + usability + navigability

Business Case: Website redesigns

According to Forrester Research, Fortune 1000 companies continue to spend an average of 1.5 to 2.1 million US dollars each year on website redesigns to "update the look-and-feel", without having "any measurable goals for the redesign".

Why redesign?

Badly designed websites frustrate users and can damage a firm's e-business prospects:

• A Taylor Nelson Sofres study revealed that companies have only 20 seconds to grab web shoppers' attention. It suggests that websites that take too long to load, are hard to navigate, bombard consumers with pop-up adverts and force them to register to get access to services could be stunting the growth of e-commerce in the UK. Instead, consumers prefer websites that have a consistent look, are easy to navigate and do not try to cram too much information on one page.
• More than 83% of Internet users are likely to leave a website if they feel they have to make too many clicks to find what they're looking for, according to a 2001 Internet survey by Knowledge Systems and Research Inc. The survey further revealed that "ease of use/navigation" and "fast download time" were considered to be the two most important and 'sticky' web design features.
• Most Internet users regularly suffer from 'web rage', according to a Mori study. The most annoying features were found to be the length of time it takes websites to appear, help buttons that do not offer any help and requests for personal details before being allowed into a site.

Surfability solution

Surfability specialises in redesigning websites, making them measurably more usable, accessible and navigable.