A website usability checklist is a short list of tests you run on your own site, as a visitor would, to find where people get confused, stuck or give up. You need no special software: a phone, a laptop and an hour will find most of the problems that cost a small business enquiries.
Each item below says what to check, how to check it and what good looks like, and none of it needs a website UX specialist. It ends with a cheap way to test with five real people. Keep a note of each item, pass or fail, and what you saw, and use your phone on mobile data and a private laptop window, so you see what a newcomer sees.
First impression, clarity and navigation
- Can a stranger tell what you do? Look at the home page for five seconds, look away, and say what the business does, where and for whom. Good looks like a headline that names the service and area in plain words, such as “Emergency plumber serving [your town]”, not a slogan.
- Is the main action visible without scrolling? Check the first screen on a laptop and a phone. Good looks like one primary button with a verb on it (call, book, get a quote) in a colour that stands out, and the phone number visible on mobile.
- Does every page stand on its own? Open three inner pages directly, as if arriving from a search result. Good looks like a heading that matches what the visitor wanted and a route to the main action on each.
- Is anything left over from a template? Read every page, including the footer and error page. Good looks like no placeholder text, sample images, demo testimonials, dead social icons or stale copyright year.
- Can you reach important pages in two or three clicks? List the five things customers ask about most and find each from the home page. Good looks like a short menu with labels customers use, such as “Services”, “Prices” and “Contact”.
- Do the menu and links work? Tap every menu and footer link. Good looks like no broken or “coming soon” pages, and an error page with a way back.
- Can people find you by name? Search your business name. Good looks like your own site at the top. Ranking for searches without your name is covered in our guide to local SEO for small businesses.
Mobile: use it with one hand
Many people meet a small business on a phone first. A mobile-friendly website is not one that merely shrinks to fit; it is one you can use with a thumb while standing up. Google also mainly uses the mobile version of a page for indexing, so problems here are search problems too.
- Complete your main task one-handed. Call, book or send an enquiry using only your thumb. Good looks like buttons within reach and nothing that needs pinching, zooming or a second hand.
- Are tap targets big enough? Tap each link in a crowded area such as the footer. WCAG 2.2 sets a minimum target size of 24 by 24 CSS pixels, and main buttons should be well above it. Good looks like no mis-taps.
- Does anything cover the content? Watch for cookie banners, chat bubbles, pop-ups and sticky bars. Good looks like one banner at most, easy to dismiss, and nothing over the call button or form.
Contact and conversion
This is where usability turns into enquiries. Test every route as a customer would, and confirm the message reaches you: a form that delivers nothing fails silently.
- Send a test enquiry through every form. Use a phone and a personal email address. Good looks like an on-screen confirmation, an email in the right inbox (not spam) within minutes, and a reply-to address that is the customer’s.
- Count the fields. For each one, ask whether you would refuse to reply without it. Good looks like a name, a way to reply and a message box, with labels above the fields rather than vanishing inside them.
- Break the form on purpose. Leave a required field empty and mistype an email address. Good looks like a plain-words error beside the field that keeps everything already typed.
- Tap the phone number. Good looks like the dialler opening with the number filled in, which needs the number written as text, not an image, in a tel: link with the country code.
- Tap the WhatsApp button. Good looks like a wa.me link with your full international number that opens a chat with your business, ideally with a short pre-filled message.
Readability and accessibility
Accessibility is usability for everyone: people with low vision, older customers, keyboard and screen-reader users, and anyone reading in bright sunlight. The reference standard is WCAG 2.2, published by the W3C; you need not read all of it to catch the common problems.
- Contrast. Test light grey text, text over photos and pale buttons with a free contrast checker. WCAG level AA asks for at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Good looks like dark text on a plain light background.
- Text size. Zoom a laptop browser to 200 per cent. Good looks like every page still readable and usable, with nothing overlapping.
- Alt text. A free accessibility browser extension will list your images. Good looks like a short description of what each meaningful image shows, and empty alt text on decorative ones so screen readers skip them, never file names or keyword strings.
- Keyboard and focus. Put the mouse aside and press Tab repeatedly. Good looks like a visible outline moving through links, buttons and fields in a sensible order, a menu that works from the keyboard, and a focused item never hidden behind a sticky header, which WCAG 2.2 added a check for.
- Link text and headings. Read only the links, then only the headings. Good looks like “See our prices” rather than a row of “Read more”, and headings that describe what follows.
Speed and stability: Core Web Vitals in plain English
Google measures how a page feels to load and use with three numbers called Core Web Vitals. They line up closely with what visitors notice.
| Metric | What it measures | What visitors notice when it is poor | Google’s “good” threshold |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | How long until the main content, usually the big image or headline, appears | A blank or half-drawn screen | 2.5 seconds or less |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | How quickly the page responds to a tap, click or keypress | Buttons that seem to ignore them | 200 milliseconds or less |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | How much the layout moves while loading | Tapping the wrong thing because the page jumped | 0.1 or less |
A page counts as good on a metric when at least three in four real visits meet the threshold; web.dev sets out how each is measured.
- Run PageSpeed Insights on your home page and main service page. Read the mobile result. With enough visitors, the top section shows real-user data; many small sites have too few, leaving only a lab test that simulates one load and cannot measure INP directly. Treat it as a guide, not a verdict.
- Load the site on your phone over mobile data. Good looks like the main content arriving quickly and the page staying still.
- Tap something while the page is loading. Good looks like the tap landing where you aimed and an immediate response.
The usual causes are oversized images, too many plugins or third-party scripts, late-loading fonts, and images with no space reserved. This is ongoing work, and part of what hosting, SSL and maintenance should cover.
Trust signals
Visitors decide quickly whether a business is real. Make that easy, and honest.
- A real address or service area. Good looks like a street address if customers come to you, or a clear service area if you go to them, matching your Google Business Profile exactly.
- A real phone number and email. Good looks like a number that is answered or returns calls promptly, and an email on your own domain rather than free webmail.
- Reviews you can stand behind. Good looks like reviews from real customers, attributable to where they were left. Never invent, buy or rewrite reviews: regulators in several countries, including the United States, treat fake reviews as deceptive advertising.
- No security warnings. Open several pages, including the form. Good looks like a valid certificate everywhere, no “not secure” label, and every address redirecting to https.
- Names, faces and prices. Good looks like an about page saying who runs the business, and prices, ranges or a plain explanation of what a quote depends on. If you are weighing up a rebuild, our breakdown of what a small business website costs sets out typical market ranges.
Test with five people, then fix in order
The hallway test
You cannot see your own site with fresh eyes, so borrow someone else’s. A hallway test means watching a few people try real tasks and noting where they hesitate; it costs a few coffees and an afternoon.
- Pick three tasks and write them as goals, not instructions: “Find out whether they cover your area and how to get a quote”, not “Click Services”.
- Find five people with no connection to the business, ideally resembling your customers: friends of friends, a neighbour, a relative. Not staff, and not anyone who helped build the site.
- Use their own phone, somewhere quiet. Ask them to think aloud, and say you are testing the site, not them.
- Do not help. If they ask where something is, reply “Where would you expect it to be?” and wait.
- Note where they pause, tap wrongly, go back or read twice.
- Look for repeats. The same struggle from two or three people is a problem with the site, not the person. Fix those, then test again with new people.
Five is not a magic number, but it is enough for obvious problems to repeat, and small repeated rounds teach more than one big session.
What to fix first
Sort your notes into three groups: anything that stops someone contacting you, such as a form that never arrives; anything that slows people or makes them doubt you, such as poor contrast or a jumpy page; and polish. Fix the first group this week.
Some fixes are quick wording changes; others are structural. If the list says rebuild rather than patch, that is what our websites designed and built service is for, and the pricing page sets out what the monthly plan includes and what is quoted separately.
Questions people ask
How often should I run a website usability checklist?
Run the full checklist at least once a year and after any significant change, such as a new page, plugin, redesign or phone number. A quick monthly pass of the contact items, sending a test enquiry and tapping the call and WhatsApp buttons, catches the failures that cost you most.
Is a good PageSpeed score the same as a usable website?
No. A fast page can still be confusing, and the lab score is a simulated load on a single device. Use the score to find technical causes of slowness, but judge usability by whether real people can finish real tasks, which is what the hallway test shows.
Does my small business website legally have to meet WCAG?
It depends on where you operate and what kind of organisation you are, and the rules differ between countries. Even where no specific rule applies, these checks make the site easier for every visitor, so they are worth doing anyway. For a definitive answer about your situation, ask a lawyer who works in this area.
Which small business website design tips matter most for enquiries?
Say plainly what you do and where on the first screen, make the phone number tappable, keep the contact form short and confirm it arrives, and make sure the site works one-handed on a phone. Those four sit directly between a ready visitor and your inbox.
Set aside an hour this week, work through the checklist with your phone in one hand, then line up five people for the hallway test. If you would like a second pair of eyes on the results, or the fixes done for you, talk to Tecnomation and we will tell you plainly which items matter and what they would take.
