15 Startling Website Usability Issues You Cannot Ignore

Are you struggling to find out why the number of visitors on your site is not increasing? A website usability issue might be the reason. Website usability issues are usually a result of poor design.? A website's success largely depends on user experience. If users find any difficulty using the website, it is obvious that they will not feel like revisiting it.?

This article will share some of today’s most common website usability issues and offer some solutions. There are many elements to consider to increase website engagement. Go through the article; you may find a solution to your problem.?

15 common website usability issues?

1. Inconsistency?

The layout is the first thing that catches the viewers' eyes. All the elements of your web pages must be in the proper position and consistent. Catching the viewers' attention is the first step. The rest comes later. If your website fails to attract viewers, all other things are meaningless. So, the first and foremost thing to make your site successful is to make it attractive and impressive.?

2. Small Clickable Areas?

A tiny clickable area creates a lot of uneasiness. A big clickable area helps the users to hover the cursor over a link smoothly. That may not be the case with a small clickable area. Users will miss the link because the users’ movements with the muse are not very precise. If users miss a link, it is a pitfall for you.????

3. Too Many Popups?

No one likes popups. If too many pop-ups keep appearing one after one, it is a terrible experience. After this, if your visitors never turn back, it is not their fault. Use popups only when they are urgently required. Otherwise, you will lose many of your visitors.????

4. Duplicate Page Titles?

A good web page title means a lot. This is the element that appears on the search pages. It also shows up in the browsers. It communicates a lot of things to the visitors. If the title is attractive, only your viewers feel like going through the inner texts. But if the content is irrelevant to the page, it irritates the viewers. And if it fails to give a clear picture of the details of the page content, it is challenging to get visitors to that page. This is also wrong to reuse the same title for many pages. It makes the pages lose some of their key benefits.????

5. Inability to contact?

Often, your visitors feel the need to contact you for various reasons. There may be issues regarding using any website feature, or they may need further information. Your contact details should be adequate. Otherwise, your users will find it difficult to contact you. This will lower your value in their eyes.????

6. Inability To Search?

It is not always easy to locate an element on a website, especially with many pages. To relieve users from this, you should keep a search bar. Users struggle to find their desired pages or elements without a search bar. It may make them frustrated.??

7. Old Permalinks

Sometimes, old permalinks point nowhere. Often, your users click on them just to see that the pages do not exist. It often disappoints the users. And if the users are not happy, it is difficult for you to survive in a competitive market. To avoid this problem, keep checking the permalinks regularly.??

8. Registration Requirements?

Registration is good from the point of view of safety. But it becomes disturbing if your users must register to avail themselves of most of your website’s functionalities. They will definitely prefer to visit another website in such a situation. Limit the registration feature to only the most crucial elements you don’t want to share with everyone.?

9. Long Forms?

A long form in itself is a disturbing element. If the users must fill up so many fields and devote a long time to it, they will likely leave midway. It is certainly not desirable. Your purpose will not be achieved. So, try to keep your forms short.??

10. Too Many Sub-Menus

It is a belief in the web world that if what your users need is more than 3 clicks away, it is not a good practice. An excessive sub-menu sometimes makes users lose their patience. Because they have to click a lot. Consider users’ convenience, categorize your items carefully, and place them under a few heads in the menu bar.?

11. Unclear Interface?

A complicated user interface distracts users from focusing on anything.? Often they find it challenging to understand all the features. If users don’t feel comfortable, it will only result in poor traffic. The existing users also may not come back. Websites with an easy user interface succeed more.?

12. Long Loading Time?

The success of a website, to a large extent, depends on its performance. If it takes a long time to load, it is a drawback. No one likes a slow website. Visitors may switch to those channels if your competitors’ sites perform better. Making the website load faster to increase conversions is essential to hold the viewers back.??

13. Uneasy To Go Back?

Sometimes you feel the need to go back and correct some mistakes. Sometimes you even change your mind and feel like going backward. In such a situation, if the back button causes a problem, it frustrates you. The website operators are responsible for providing users with easy solutions to move backward.?

14. Poor Navigation?

Navigation is a very crucial element of a website. Quite often, your visitors want to go to the inner pages. If they face difficulty navigating, they may switch to another channel. It may affect the reputation of your website in an adverse way. Building a proper navigation system is a must.?

15. Broken Links?

Visitors might be disappointed if a page or a blog post on your website links to a broken internal or external page. This generally happens when the page you are linking to has a 4xx or 5xx error code. Broken links can have a negative effect on user experience. They can cause confusion and frustration for users as they can’t access the content they seek. This can lead to a decrease in user engagement and an increase in bounce rates, as users may not want to bother navigating a site with broken links. Broken links can also impact a website’s search engine rankings, as search engines may not be able to crawl and index the content.

How can you Identify Website Usability Issues?

Session recordings?

Session recording is a very powerful tool for user behavior analysis. They let you monitor all your visitors’ actions on your site. It gives you an idea about where your visitors spend time, what grabs their attention, and what convinces them to convert.?

Checkout Flow Analysis

It gives you a visual representation of the performance of your web pages. It helps you to track the cursor movements of the visitors in detail. This lets you find out which element works more for your target audience and gives you an idea about the likings and dislikings of the visitors. Accordingly, if you design your pages, you will get more visitors.?

Survey?

Surveys are perhaps the best tool to describe viewers’ reactions. If you make a simple and clean form on your website, more people fill it up and submit it. This is very important for new client acquisition or list building.

Abandoned Cart Analysis?

Cart abandonment is like money left in the form of incomplete transactions. The analysis clarifies what stops the visitors from converting and what persuades them to buy a product. It helps you to reshape your website as per the choice of the visitors and design campaigns more effectively.??

Eye-tracking?

Nowadays, technology allows you to track the eye movements of visitors. It lets you find out which areas draw more attention. Based on this, you can redesign your website for better performance.?

Visitors overview analysis?

Visitors overview analysis is actually like a mirror for you. You get to know about your merits and demerits. Accordingly, your website will become more popular if you set your future agenda and go for self-development.??

You can use a tool like Hotjar to identify website usability issues. Hotjar is a comprehensive digital analytics and feedback tool suite that allows users to track, analyze, and optimize a website’s user experience. It enables users to collect user behavior and feedback data, such as heatmaps, recordings, and surveys.

Hotjar also provides tools to measure conversion rates and track user journeys on a website. It offers integrations with popular third-party services such as Google Analytics, WordPress, Magento, and Shopify.?

Conclusion?

We have shared some standard website usability issues that most websites face today. At the end of the article, we suggest some tools to overcome those problems. Check what issue your site is facing and take some corrective actions. We recommend that you run a UX audit yourself or leave it to the experts. If your site can meet your users' expectations, you are bound to succeed.