us·a·bil·i·ty
noun
The effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks in a particular environment of a product. High usability means a system is: easy to learn and remember; efficient, visually pleasing and fun to use; and quick to recover from errors.

cri·te·ri·on
noun
a standard of judgment or criticism; a rule or principle for evaluating or testing something.
plural cri·te·ri·a

Usability

The idea is that, no matter what you're doing, there's a user-centered way of doing it.

Users should be considered throughout the Web site design process. Usability should not be an afterthought. Testing and fixing a Web site after it has been built is inefficient and unlikely to produce good results. The best approach to take is to incorporate a model of pervasive usability into your design and production process.

The benefits of planning usability into your project are:

• Increased end-user satisfaction
• Increased end-user productivity, success, and completion
• Reduced long-term development costs (costs incurred from fixing poorly designed products)
• Reduced training and support costs
• Return business to improve your competitiveness

Source: usabilityfirst.com

Usability Criteria

• Link Behavior
• Navigability
• Page Layout
• Homepage
• Spelling & Grammar

Web Pages that Suck

Sometimes the best way to learn good web design is by looking at really bad web design. Vince Flanders has created a site devoted to bad web page design, and he tells you why the designs suck.

webpagesthatsuck.com