Study shows that a website’s usability is still crucial to success

It will probably come as no surprise to learn that 86% of the British public have used the web to research a company before using their services.  What may seem unusual is that three quarters of these people have also decided not to use certain companies after encountering unusable websites.

Rawnet's Online Conversion Report polled UK adults and discovered that, of the percentage who had researched companies online, 78% had decided not to choose a particular service thanks to an inefficient site.

The study showed that 22% of British adults used the web every time that they considered using a company, and that most had used the web at some point to help them make a decision.  Those polled agreed that travel companies and supermarkets generally ran the most useful sites, while charities were highlighted as having the weakest web presence.

However, they also agreed that most company websites lacked something.  A third of those polled stated that they believe it to be hard to find a website which is really useful and usable.  As many as one in five also stated that a showy and high-tech website is usually difficult to use.

"Consumer opinions about web sites in general demonstrate a real gap between creative and technical capabilities of most web design projects," said Adam Smith, managing director of Rawnet. "The simple truth is that the two aspects should not live in separate silos – there is absolutely no reason why a really creative web site shouldn't be easy to use and produce real business benefits for clients. Researching companies online is now a part of daily life and a shocking number of companies are losing out on a massive amount of potential business simply because their current web design agency has either focused too much on what looks great, or too much on non-essential technical features and failed to actually produce a website that works for the business."