Rules For User Friendly Websites 
From the examples we have given I have been trying to infer a set of rules that web masters who are concerned about the user friendliness of their sites should observe. Here's a first cut at the rules.
1 Home Page 
 Does the home page present a list of options that fits with what you want to do on the site? What this means essentially is: does the list of options cover all legitimate uses of the site?

Is there an “other” option (an ELSE clause)? This could be covered by a “Contact Us” option if that option includes a means to send a query by email. In this case it would be best if the Contact Us option was also headed “and Enquiries/Queries”.

Is there a search facility to search the site included on the home page? This can be helpful if the intended use of the site is slightly esoteric.

 2 Information Requested
 Where information that the user may not have readily to hand is to be solicited, are the relevant items of information required listed on the opening page to this section of the site? They should be; there is nothing more frustrating than having to spend time search for documents and then finding that the site has timed out on you. The items of information requested should all be covered by “other” options. We can probaly exempt from this the requirement for a credit/debit card when purchasing is involved, since that need should be obvious.

 3 Restrictions
If any restrictions are to be imposed, are these noted before any form-filling commences? Many sites have restrictions and few signal them in advance. Restrictions are most often geographical or financial. That is, items may not be able to be ordered from/delivered to specific geographic regions or may not apply to residents outside particular countries and some credit/debot cards may not be accepted. If any of this applies, or there are any other restrictions, these should be signalled in advance of the transatcion being started.

4 Telephone Contact
I've no idea how many or if any websites track telephone traffic to ascertain how much of this is rekated to their website but all websites owners should. Such analysis may well tell them more about the effectiveness of their website than they wish to hear.

 Other Rules For Website Owners 
There are a number of other rules questions that website owners might usefully ask themselves, partcularly if they have inherited the website they are managing and had no part in its initial creation.

1 What if any user testing has been carried out, by whom, and is this repeated periodically?
We've already given our paradigm for the ideal user tester, the IT illiterate grandmother living in Khazakstan. Failing this, who has been used to test the site? It must be obvious that knowledge of use of the site increases enormously over time and all kinds of statistics are generally available. But how much of this is used to assess the user friendiness of the site? Are statistics gathered on transactions aborted mid-transaction for instance? Are telephone transactions related to the site, or which could have been carried out on the site, trapped and recorded? And are user-friendliness tests repeated periodically or when a new version of the site is launched? Some sites have adopted the practice of releasing a beta version of the new site to the public, presumably as a form of user testing. I'm not generally in favour of getting the public to do your dirty work for you but accept that this could be a useful adjunct to other forms of user testing. In any case, small changes are made to most websites all the time and these should always be user-tested.

2 Unstated Assumptions 
 Does your site contain unstated assumptions? If the rules stated above are rigourously adhered to this shouldn't be the case. It is still worth checking. To repeat just one example already given, declaration of one's age does not necessarily imply that the client requires all the concessions that may be available with a given age. It is easy to ask the question, stupid to make the unstated assumption.

3 Contact Us
In an age when most commercial organisations are spending a great deal of money trying to forge links with potential customers it amazes me how many sites seem to deliberately make it diffcult to contact them. If the fear is of allowing a deluge of useless contacts, it is easy to avoid this by using filters on the Contact page. I have very rarely seen such filters used. Quite apart from contact details, if even these are displayed, it would be easy to use filters such as Purchasing Enquiry, Query, Complaint, etc. Why does nobody use them?