Usability - The key for success or failure of web projects

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Computer Science - Commercial Information Technology ( Middlesex University in London ) course: Business Information Technology language: English abstract: This thesis is tackling web usability and questioning its important for websites and web projects.Many websites are published daily and others are removed. A normal web surfer can notice many websites that deliver similar services but only one or two of them are distinguished and have higher visits rates while others are poorly noticed or remembered. Different studies have been made to determine the keys of success or failure of web projects. This study aims to investigate web sites usability and draw attention to usability as key factor in positioning websites in ranking charts encouraging visitors' web traffic and keeping visitors' loyalty. Commercial web sites services web sites and portals aim to increase their benefits and income so this study will introduce usability as a most important factor for achieving this and making web sites and projects stand out from others. For those who are not familiar with the term web usability this study will first introduce the web usability definition and then web sites usability history will be briefly discussed. The study will also point out the importance of web usability testing methodology and describe some of these methodologies. The 'Drupal' content management system is employed in. A practical case study to apply usability to determine the effort made in usability testing and the reflection of usability testing on it. This study points out how usability testing efforts was a key of success in helping this product to top its competitors. An online survey was conducted to collect web surfers' data about their understanding of usability and their attitude towards it. The results have been analysed and charts were drawn to visualise the collected data information. Conclusions had drawn summarizing th