Larry Becker of the Rimm-Kaufman Group writes for Multichannel Merchant an impressive list of simple Web site checks that companies can do in a few minutes to improve the effectiveness and usability of their sites.  The list includes tips for:

• home page
• navigation
• category page
• site search
• product-detail page
• shopping cart
• checkout
  

Each point is extremely important and Larry does a great job of breaking it down to the basics.  But what about online service and channel integration? If you've taken the 7 minutes Larry's suggested to review the above tips, we ask that you take one more minute to address these questions: 

Does your site provide clear paths to service options, either FAQs or email? And, is there a clear escalation path to live help via chat or voice? 

As more and more consumers state their preference for seamless cross-channel experiences, these are questions that should be considered in any evaluation of Web usability.