The following quotes have been culled from a variety of interface design and usability resources on the Internet. These are simply for reference, and as this is an informal overview, I have not listed the sources.

Contact me directly if you would like to find out more.

Research Quotes

• "Users may be enticed by websites that are aesthetically pleasing and promote an interesting mood, but they tend to be far more satisfied and stay with websites that are designed for their use in mind."
  
  
  

• "Typically, usability is defined as how learnable, efficient, memorable, reliable in use, and satisfying and subjectively pleasing a website is for its users."
  
  
  

• "A website should be easy to figure out and learn (its layout should be as intuitive as possible), it should be efficient or require as few steps as possible to retrieve the desired information, users should easily remember the steps needed to retrieve information, and a site should leave the users with a positive feeling about the site and the organization as a whole."
  
  
  

• "Usability in this sense should be predicated on the notion that the design of a web interface ought to focus on the typical users’ mental model of what constitutes the structure of a website, along with how they intend to use the website and the means to accomplish this."
  
  
  

• "It may sound obvious, but things have to work the same everywhere on the site for people to feel comfortable."
  
  
  

• "Good usability won't generally bring first-time visitors to a site: linking, marketing, reputation, and recommendation are far more important for that. But once users have arrived, it's crucial that they have a good experience. If they find a navigation system that's confusing, or they can't figure out how to buy something, they will be less likely to stay at the site, return to it in future, or complete a transaction. For a business site, lost traffic and lost transactions means lost revenue."
  
  
  

• "Another study found that 62 per-cent of online shoppers had given up at least once while looking for products, and 42 percent had turned to traditional channels to make their purchase." (September, 1999)
  
  
  

• "When a customer has a bad experience on a web site, on average they tell about 10 other people. If customers achieve their goals on a website...good customer experience is likely to lead to future visits by the customer and long term loyalty for the site...On average, 53% of total online revenues come from repeat customers." (September, 1999)
  
  
  

• "The solution to the users’ security concerns is a better customer experience – including, to be sure, posted guarantees and security policies – but also including the elements necessary for good navigation, as described above. If a website...allows customers to achieve their goals quickly and easily – the site will be a comfortable, familiar environment in which customers are more likely to use their credit cards."