Webpage refresh

Photos © Sentavio | Adobestock

It’s natural to think that everyone who uses your website will experience it as you do. But because you’re so familiar with it, you may be missing some easy ways to improve its usability that could boost sales and make sure it is ADA compliant.

Look at common website user tasks

When was the last time you actually tried using your website as if you were a customer? I challenge you to write out three or four of the most common tasks your customers accomplish every day.

Some examples:

• Search for all the lavender/salvia/insert-your-product-here currently available.
• Create an account.
• Figure out when something will ship, before purchasing.
• Add three flats of one product and two items of another product to your cart.
• Find and review your guarantee policy.
• Check out using PayPal, Apple Pay or other alternative payment types.

Now, try doing all of these tasks on your cellphone. If you find it frustrating, you can expect your customer will find it doubly so. After this process, I suspect you’ll quickly get a short list of mobile fixes for your web developer.

Next, ask a friend who is not familiar with your website to do those same tasks on the desktop version while you watch them. (Make sure to reward them with some plants or a nice bottle of their favorite beverage!) Note where they struggle and add this to your list of website fixes.

Consider professional usability testing

If you have the budget, you can outsource professional testing. There are several tools to do this, but I’m most familiar with Hotjar. You give them tasks to complete (like those above), select the level of website competence (choose the middle, neither expert or novice) and they provide video feedback from users. You may want to specify that users have some familiarity with gardening/plants — or not. These recordings of site interactions can be especially illuminating, particularly when someone who isn’t familiar with your site is using it. What seems second nature for you may be insurmountable for them.

Sluggish site? The number one reason is…

If you’re routinely uploading images that are in the 10MB range (easy to do with cellphone photos), your site will eventually slow to a crawl. Your images should be optimized for size (shoot for around 600KB), so your site loads quickly. The tool Canva makes it straightforward to optimize online images.

Include alt text (text that explains the image) to make sure that a screen reader can parse the page for people with visual disabilities.

Optimize your text and stop centering it right now!

Multiple studies point to left-justified text as being easier to read — just like this article! Avoid using center-justified text, except for headlines or short subheads.

Text needs to be large enough to be easily readable — 14-point text is typically the smallest you’ll want to use. Users will spend more time on your website if the text size doesn’t strain their eyes.

Understand CTAs and know what makes them pop

You’ll want to make sure your links and buttons stand out. Known as CTAs (Calls to Action) — a.k.a. “the thing you want people to do”— they should draw attention, directing the user to act. Make sure you have one on every page. Examples are: Log In, Learn More, Shop Now, Add To Cart, Buy Now or Checkout Now. Ideally, links and buttons should all be the same color, signaling to the user that they are clickable. Try adding a caret > to the CTA: Buy Now >. When testing, we’ve been seeing higher click-through rates with this character added.

Examine the colors you use

Examine the colors you use and make sure there is enough contrast. Dark websites were all the rage once, and while white text on a black background can look dramatic, studies have shown that it is more difficult to read than dark text on a light background.

Make sure to account for those users with red/green color blindness. One of my clients was using lime green buttons with hot pink headlines. For someone with color blindness, there wasn’t much of a difference in the contrast — the buttons blended into the page. A great resource to check text contrast is WebAIM (Accessibility in Mind).

Why ADA compliance matters

Making your website ADA compliant won’t just benefit people with disabilities — it will make it more usable for everyone. If that isn’t reason enough, consider that you could be fined tens of thousands of dollars for a non-compliant website, a potentially huge liability. I personally know of a company that was fined $50,000 for ADA violations. I’ve heard of several similar stories within the green industry. Check your website at Accessibility Checker.

Prioritize your list

Regarding ADA compliance, oftentimes usability issues can be resolved by making small tweaks to the CSS (the single stylesheet that controls how the entire website looks). In less than an hour of dev time, you could change the background color, text color and font size to meet standards.

Next, look at the list and ask yourself: What changes will deliver the most impact? Often, that means revenue. Definitely focus on the “low-hanging fruit” that leads directly to more dollars in the door. It might also mean gathering email addresses at the checkout/site footer so you can continue to engage with your customers in the future.

Don’t make me think

Last, I would recommend an excellent book: “Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability,” by Steve Krug. Now in its third edition, it is one of the original sources on web usability. I first read this book about 15 years ago, and the lessons are still with me. The premise: Don’t add any friction to the experience of using your website. Users only have so much mental bandwidth, and if your site isn’t intuitive, they often will give up in frustration. It’s a slim book that can be read in an afternoon, but it will change your perspective on websites and the digital world.

Wendy Hatoum is the email marketing director for The Garden of Words agency. She has worked in digital marketing for more than 15 years.