Web Site Usability Issues - Effects On Business, Low-end Users, Compatibility Across Systems, Making Web Sites Handicap Accessible

No matter how sophisticated and well planned a Web site's design, it was ultimately the user's experience that counted most, particularly in e-commerce. If customers couldn't use a site's offerings, they couldn't make a purchase. Usability refers to the overall quality of a user's Web site experience. Did the page load quickly? Was she able to find everything she was looking for? Were all links "live"—that is, did they actually access other Web pages? Were all the more involved processes, such as order forms and shopping carts, functioning properly? Was the site's navigation scheme logical and easy to follow? In short, does the site do what it was intended to do, and could the user figure out how to use it?

In the tense commercial environment of the World Wide Web, customers are notoriously impatient, particularly when it comes to the usability of commercial sites. Since the great promise of the Web is its enormous convenience, particularly in terms of speed, customers learn relatively quickly what they want to find, and if it isn't readily available on one site, they'll simply seek it out elsewhere. As reported in Fortune, according to the research firm Keynote Systems, Web users grant a Web site an average of eight seconds of download time before clicking away to another site. Moreover, much research suggests that customers tend to be unforgiving of sites that fail to load quickly or provide an adequately usable environment, so sites that are too difficult for users to navigate or load may simply be written off altogether as customers develop loyalty to other, more user-friendly sites.