Visited links should change colour once they have been clicked on. This helps users understand where they have been.
Users appear to like and use clearly and comprehensively labelled top tabs to help them navigate.
Users want to feel that they have accessed all the things that are of interest to them and that they haven’t missed anything that they might have wanted to see.
The back button is important. This is one reason that pop-up or new windows aren't great.
Not every use is familiar with web conventions, like logos acting as 'home' buttons.
When users click on a link they want to know where it is taking them to.
Pages must load quickly
Users often don't realise that they can scroll down or across, so if content must be outside the immediate viewing area, provide an indication of its presence
There must be consistency amongst navigational tools between different parts of the site.
If a link consists of text and a picture then both of these have to be active
Interfaces and content
The homepage should provide a good indication of the scope of content and interactivity inside
Accessibility is vital - it improves the experience for everyone and is great for search engine optimisation
Usability is more important than the backend stuff, no matter how cool that is. Test, test, play, test!
Users want interesting and unusual content.
Visitors do not want large amounts of text. They do not wish to have the equivalent of a book online. Users expect pictures, interactivity, games.
Consistently we have found that users want content which is relevant to them or has a human interest angle
Search and language
The way we label and tag things doesn't necessarily make sense to visitors. User tags and folksonomies might be a good way to improve the discoverability of our content.
We're exploring ways to help make search results more useful, especially when the results can be of very mixed types - more research is needed
'Advanced search' - very open question as to whether this is useful