Written by Fani Sánchez
Today is International Usability Day.
This event, founded in 2005, brings together every year professionals, academics, companies, institutions and government agencies interested in developing usable technology that makes our lives easier. As far as the Internet is concerned, efforts are oriented in the same direction, basing the structure and content of a Web site on user-centered design, accessibility or optimization of Web architecture.
The Usability Professionals Association (UPA) in its different delegations holds conferences and meetings all over the world. This year, the theme of the lectures will be ‘Education: Design for Social Change‘ in honor of the recently departed Steve Jobs who, according to Elizabeth Rosenzweig – director of the World Usability Day-, was “one of those people who knew how to use technology to help people achieve their dreams.”
Apple, through its pioneering design focused on practicality and usability. extended the technology to users, offering them “a model that they could understand, and therefore remember more easily“.
Since it was realized that the best way to know what users need is to listen to them and apply a little empathy, many companies have been dedicated to evaluate the usability of technological products and Webs with the so-called Usability Testing.
On the Internet, Search Engine Optimization and Usability are perfect complements that work together to build traffic loyalty to your site. An SEO campaign will be much more effective if it works on a page with a good information architecture and a user-centered design. In other words, SEO will attract visitors to your website, but whether they stay on the page or not will depend largely on whether your site is usable.
