Google’s Matt Cutts recently made it very clear that usability is going to be one of their most important ranking factors moving forward, as they emphasize site speed and quality design as the two aspects that aren’t getting the attention they deserve.
Google isn’t the first to pinpoint how important usability is either. It has been one of the most common discussions in web design since its inception, while slowly becoming more important to users.
Quality usability is also at the heart of the of all the biggest start-up success stories. Quality products can be ignored if people get frustrated with the website, while the good or great products that are easy to access or use only attract more people and cement the public perception of a given brand.
You would think usability would have been boiled down to a science by now, or at least be such common sense that it wouldn’t be a big issue, but if it was so easy there wouldn’t be so many of the same usability mistakes all over the web, from big companies to the smallest mom-and-pop shops with an online presence.
Christian Vasile deconstructed these popular mistakes last week and offered options for those that seem to be repeatedly rejecting all the currents standards. Most of these, you’ll notice as bad decisions before you’ve gotten past the headline, but maybe you’ll be surprised to find that you’ve been continuously implementing one of the most hated design techniques around.