Usability is a big part of my business offering, and is an aspect of web design I've been devoted to and preaching about for years.
A few years back, usability was almost unheard of; today there are thousands of usability consultants out there. While these fellow evangelists have done much to raise standards, I'm still amazed by their lack of focus on clear, concise language.
And for all web designers' concern these days with good navigation; web-safe colours; page widths that fit in windows; etc., many do not put enough thought into the single most important aspect of web design -- language (text) that is easy to understand.
We can't just blame web folk; after all, they pick up poor language-use traits from the offline world. Too many documents -- from insurance forms to competition rules on the back of cereal boxes -- are written in gobbledygook.
Remember: usability begins with plain English or (French, Russian, Chinese, Irish...).
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