[Dan Gorgone] Usability is an important aspect of design because you want people to use the things that you build. 0:00 You want them to use it for its intended purpose and to be successful at whatever they're trying to do. 0:05 and this is what's known as a "User-Centered Approach" to design. 0:11 Meaning that instead of focusing exclusively on the wants and needs of the company or ourselves, 0:16 we're gonna focus of the wants and needs of the users. 0:21 Why? Because as amazing as we might think our site or app might be, 0:24 if no one is using it to connect with us, or buy anything, or communicate, it's useless. 0:29 Usability is incompletely measurable. 0:36 There's no instrument or magic number that's gonna tell if a website is usable or not. 0:38 It requires quantitative and qualitative analysis of various parts. 0:43 Meaning, that if you wanna know for sure how usable you're site is, you need to consider measurable data. 0:48 Like website analytics and SEO results as well as more opinion-based feedback 0:53 such as the responses you might get from user interviews or testing. 0:58 Usability is influenced by feelings, experience, and human nature. 1:03 So it's important to factor any opinions along with any hard numbers that you can collect so you can get whole picture. 1:08 But what usability often boils down to is a balance 1:15 and when people use your site, they usually have a goal in mind. 1:20 They want to find something, they want to read something, they want to download something, or buy something. 1:23 All of these different somethings have different value to different people. 1:29 As people use your site, the amount of effort it takes to find that content will factor into how usable they find the site. 1:33 It affects their experience and their willingness to keep going if something gets in their way, 1:41 such as confusing links, hard-to-find content, or some other unexpected detours. 1:46 If any of these things happen, the user will have to decide if they wanna continue using the site. 1:53 It is effort versus value. 1:58 In the end, if the site proves to be not as usable as they'd hoped 2:01 and takes too much effort when weighed against the value of the content they want, they will leave. 2:05 For example, if a friend shares a funny video from a social media account, you might decide that it's worth checking it out for a quick laugh. 2:11 This type of content does not have big value on the grand scheme of the things, 2:20 but at the same time, the amount of effort to view it should be minimal; should be one click. 2:23 However, if that one click leads to a site where the video takes forever to load, and then the effort and time put in this action, 2:29 it's gonna begin to outweigh the value of what's expected at the end. 2:38 I mean, how long would you wait for a mildly amusing short video to load? 2:42 Users will close that site if they don't wanna wait, and then move on to something else. 2:48 Performance affects usability, 2:53 and in this case, the usability was poor so, the user abandoned the site. 2:56 Well, here's another example. Let's say you need to pay a bill online and the quickest way to do so is your bank's mobile app. 3:01 The step you go through to find the bill pay feature might be awkward, 3:09 and there might be more steps involved than you expected. 3:13 Now, if this was a funny little video and you had to go all through these steps to watch it, 3:16 nobody would be likely go through with it. 3:20 However, the value of this goal—paying your bill—is high. 3:23 It's very important to the user. 3:26 Therefore, they are more willing to forgive some usability issues, 3:29 such as a form with some confusing fields or maybe some formatting issues, 3:33 if it means accomplishing that important goal. 3:38 However, don't think that you can get away with usability issues like these all the time. 3:42 Because the next time the user wants to pay that bill or do something else, 3:47 they may remember how difficult it was to use that app, 3:51 and they may decide to go through a different methods altogether. 3:55 What's worse is that they might tell others how bad the app is, 3:58 and bad word of mouth or social reviews are not worth the trouble. 4:02 Not every scenario is going to play out like these, 4:07 but no matter what kind of content or features you offer, you want to give your users every chance to succeed. 4:10 This means understanding what your users want, giving them what they need to accomplish their goals, 4:16 and this will increase the chances that they'll come back and use your site again and then recommend it to others. 4:22 Ideally, by satisfying the user's need, we should, in turn, meet our own. 4:28