Many years ago I had the pleasure of speaking at an Internet Marketing Conference after Tara O’Doherty. Tara is the National Director, Usability Group for Fjord Interactive (a division of Cossette) and has two huge skills:
One, Tara is probably one of the best online marketing speakers out there and two, she is an expert at explaining what’s happening online and how to make the experience better.
Tara sits on the e-Marketing Council of the CMA – Canadian Marketing Association (where I am as well), and she recently allowed the CMA to publish a tremendous article and usability checklist entitled, How Usable Is Your Website?
Here’s a sneak peak:
“Back in 2003, Forrester Research conducted an evaluation of 158 Web sites and documented alarming failure rates for various web tasks – from nearly 50 percent to almost 90 percent, for tasks including consistent navigation, page layout, accessibility and guided searches. The sad news is most companies are consistently making the same mistakes they made back in 2003.”
Tara’s article is a must-read. If you build or design websites, there really is no excuse to not have her 2005 Website Usability Checklist within view at all times.
You can view the entire article here: How Usable Is Your Website? By Tara O’Doherty.