Opinion: The biggest usability problem on the Web is people's inability to find what they are looking for. If they can't find your site, you may as well not even exist.The biggest usability problem on the Web is people's inability to find what they are looking for.
Finding something, whether it be a document, a form, an application or an article like the one you are reading, is the very first step in being able to use (or get use out of) something.
And so, the art and science of "findability" is all about finding solutions to that most important aspect of usability.
"Findability" is defined as:
"The quality of being locatable or navigable. At the item level, we can evaluate to what degree a particular object is easy to discover or locate. At the system level, we can analyze how well a physical or digital environment supports navigation and retrieval."
Wow, that's a mouthful. As far as the Web goes, we can go with the practical definition of "making information easier to find."
So you'd think findability was important to designers, right? Unfortunately, based on how hard it can be for people to find things on the Web, findability isn't a high priority. At least not yet.
The Importance of Findability on The Web
Findability is something I think is slowly becoming central to Web design and user experience on the Web. Peter Morville, who wrote the book Information Architecture for The Web and someone I like to call "Mr. Findability" says in his article "The Age of Findability" that "findability will eventually be recognized as a central and defining challenge in the development of web sites, intranets, knowledge management systems and online communities."
I honestly think that to be true. As time goes on, Google, Yahoo and MSN spend time trying to spider and catalogue the Long Tail by adding more and more information to their indexes.
Those who take the time to learn how people search for and retrieve information will be in a much better place to have their documents, products, services and thoughts actually found. And being found? It's essential to a good user experience.
I'd imagine that, in this day and age, most people involved with the design and development of Web sites and applications are fairly concerned with the user experience involved.
Much more so than a few years ago anyway. I've come across quite a few decision makers recently who are concerned that their sites are simple, clearly written, easy to use and all that. That's a great step forward.
They'll often also mention the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), which, in many ways is linked directly to the concept of findability. We all know how important it is to have our sites rank highly in Google and Yahoo!
Still, there is much more to findability than SEO, even though starting at a search engine result from say, Google, is a decent place to start.
Google as The Home Page
One thing I still see quite often is companies or organizations focusing most of their Web design efforts on a site's home page. This is important to note, because it's an outdated way of thinking.
I wrote an article awhile back about different ways to think about your navigation and your site maps. It's very important to realize (on most sites anyway) that most of your visitors do not come into your site via your home page. They come in through some kind of deep link; from a Google search result, a blog entry, or something along those lines.
What applications are defining Web 2.0? Click here to read more.
This makes it very important to focus your energy when it comes to findability on every page of your site. This means writing clear metadata (keywords, titles, etc.), making extensive use of interlinking between your pages and treating your home page as an information hub or index. While people might not start there, they will certainly head there if they're not finding what they want.
Findability For A Better Experience
A big part of providing a good user experience is taking the time to empathize with your user. One thing about findability is it's probably something we've all wished for in the past. My guess is that there isn't one person reading this who hasn't had a Google search gone awry. Or have spent time digging on someone's Web site for that ever-elusive customer service number.
It's vastly important for anyone designing or publishing on the Web to take the time to make findability a priority. One of the best ways is to take the time to learn what people are actually looking for on your sites and then actually doing something with that information.
It'll be good for your users and it'll be good for your site.
Web Design 
