If you are building your first website, you probably aren't aware of the different limitations that your website is going to have. Sure, you probably think that everybody runs Internet Explorer on their computers, but after you launch your website, you may have a lot of people complaining if you only have it Internet Explorer accessible. There are a lot of questions (and problems) with website design when deciding whether or not you want a usable website or an accessible website. Each of these things is important to consider, so when designing your next website (or redesigning your current website) you are going to want to keep these things in mind.

What exactly is usability when looking at website design? Usability is how easy it is for your customers or visitors to your site to actually find what they're looking for, get the information that they need and check out using your online shopping cart. To have a really usable website, you are going to want to keep the following things in mind. You really want to have a clean website that is easy to read. You are also probably not going to want to have some wacky design or huge graphics or videos on your website, because that is just going to slow everything down. Getting your customers in and out quickly is what they are after, so it should be what your website is designed to do. A usable website is going to make shopping easy.

So what exactly is accessibility? Accessibility is whether or not the computer user can actually access or get onto your website. There are several reasons why a website can’t be accessed. One of the most popular reasons is that you are going to have too many technical features on your website. If you have a lot videos, flash animation and programs that open up automatically when you enter the site, you are going to turn off a lot of customers who don’t want to wait for everything to load up. On the other hand, there is accessibility for people who are using a different type of Internet browser like Firefox, and there are also accessibility issues for people who have a handicap and need special features on their website. All of these three things are things you have to keep in mind when designing a website.

Unless you are a major company, you are probably going to want to go for a usable website instead of a fully accessible website. A usable website is going to be practical, easy to change, and not going to waste your customers’ time. If they have to wait for a video to load or sit through an animation before they can get into your website, they might get discouraged and just go onto the next website offering the exact same thing that you offer. If you are a major player in your market, you are going to be able to get away with having a website that is less accessible and less usable, but offers a lot more of these advanced and interesting features.

When thinking about usability and accessibility, you have to really remember that there are differences and that these differences should be observed in web design. For most people, having a simple site is going to be the best bet, and making sure that your site is solid and works for as many people and as many web browsers as possible is going to be your best bet.

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