When I go to the cinema I've usually eaten half my popcorn before the film starts. One of the reasons for this (apart from loving sweet popcorn) is the 15 minutes of trailers that you have to sit through before the film starts. For me they're as much an integral part of the cinema experience as the popcorn itself.

The same does not apply when I'm watching a DVD at home. Here I'm in control.

No, this is not about McFly and their 2005 Comic Relief single - despite what you may have heard about my taste in music. Some exciting developments here in Teddington focus on the most important people we know - you.

At this precise moment that means web users (unless you've found a way to transfer thoughts directly from my mind into yours, which is a bit disturbing) as this is web content and you're reading it.

Cost and timescale are usually the main reasons given for leaving usability out of a web project. It's true that testing a site is going to take time, and therefore money, but if anything is scalable, it's usability.

Plus, it is vital to deal with any usability issues before you're too far through a web project. Address them too late and you're definitely looking at much more of a time/cost implication than a little usability attention would have incurred.

Let me show you how it is possible to have your web usability cake and eat it, too...

Let's start with usability testing. Whilst more testing generally equals more results, a new site can be effectively tested during the design phase by just a handful of participants. If you're clear on what you need to achieve with your site, then it's easy to ask the right questions or set the right task to flag up any potential issues, regardless of the number of test participants you have.

You can also scale back by using a heuristic approach: have a single usability expert examine your site against a list of accepted principles and standards. The discussions started by a heuristic approach can help the whole team to focus on the primary goals of the site and reduce the barriers that stop users from eaching those goals. A web project often has a KPI of increased conversions and each barrier removed helps you get closer to achieving that.

However the real sticking point is often the perception that focusing on standards and conventions (a key part of web usability) impacts negatively on design: that a usable site is an ugly site. Standards and conventions are boundaries that we all have to work within when trying to complete any task, online or offline. And when it comes down to it a website is a tool to help the user complete one or more tasks. But how you apply those standards and conventions is not fixed and that's where good design comes in. A great design which goes against usability principles isn't going to get the audience it deserves.

So with all this in mind, usability should be a essential part of your web project making sure nothing gets between you and your users. Not a tough sell at all...

A recent survey of the online experience of Base One employees showed that while we're a pretty web-savvy bunch, there are some popular web tools we currently don't use very much - namely RSS and social bookmarking.

This stood out to me for two reasons. Firstly, according to our survey over 40% of us don't use these tools - a higher number than I expected. Secondly, I think RSS and social bookmarking are some of the most useful online tools available to us right now.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) brings the latest content (feeds) from your favourite sites straight to you. The RSS I use is especially convenient as my feeds are collated alongside my online email so I can check them at the same time. I'll admit I'm not sure if I'd find it as useful if I had to use a separate programme to collect feeds, but even so it would still be quicker than checking out 10 separate sites several times a week.

There are several well-known social bookmarking sites on the web (I personally use del.icio.us, but there are plenty out there) and it's invaluable to have your favourite sites bookmarked centrally. So whether you're at work, at home, or travelling, you can access your most frequently used web pages regardless of which computer or browser you're using.

The really useful content in a site is often buried deep, which usually means the URL you need may be too long to remember days later. This is just one of the things that makes social bookmarking great for online research - you don't need to remember URLs, you just check your bookmarks anywhere, anytime. And since URLs are tagged by other users as well, you can search those tags as an alternative route to finding related, useful content.

So I'm left wondering why RSS and social bookmarking came out so low on our internal survey. Are they not as well-known as I think, or are they considered merely the domain of the geek? Or maybe it's simpler than that, and we're all so dependent on search engines that we see no reason to remember a site when it can be found again with a quick visit to Google? I'm still not sure...