Make Web Design Straightforward and Stuff Easy to Find.
August 17 2009
Good web design is all about putting yourself in the eye of your audience. Seeing things from their perspective ensuring the site appeals, is readable and easy navigate and use. This is why we ask so many questions about the intended or target market of the site, so we can design with that in mind.
One of the main things you learn when surfing as a user is to put as few clicks as possible between the user and the information or product as possible. This is the single most important element of website design. Studies have shown that you have anything from 1 to 3 seconds to interest a visitor to your site in order to keep them there for any length of time. Every second counts! Splash pages, slow loading pages, music, flashing banners and all the other questionable devices take away valuable seconds while the visitor attempts to get what they need from the site.
Ensure when they use a link or the URL of the site that they arrive on a home page with meaningful information right there for them. Also make sure there is a usable menu system in order for them to navigate around the site. Use those seconds to get the visitor straight to the heart of the site. The home page text must be tight and engaging, enough to keep them there looking for more.
Keep pages succinct is another “rule” for a successful website. While sometimes unavoidable, and forgivable in some circumstance reduce scrolling as much as possible and don’t overload pages. Too much information can be as much of a turn-off as too little. If you have a lot of information to impart or a story to tell, keep each section no longer than two pages long. Any longer and you should be dividing it up into separate pages.
Ensure there is always a link to your home page of every single pages of the site. Visitors needs to be able to navigate the site effectively if they are to hang around. In fact, make sure you include a menu on every page. Make it as easy as possible for people to find things, and pages while they are on the site.
Lastly, don’t use frames. As tempting as it may be, frames have downsides that impact a website too much to consider using. It may be easier to have the same header or menu system throughout the site but there are the downsides. Firstly the address bar doesn’t change when navigating. This makes bookmarking difficult, especially if a user wants to bookmark something specific. There are so many ways to share bookmarks or links nowadays that any site owner needs to be able to capitalize on them to get ahead. The other main downside to using frames is when the site comes up in a search engine result. If the search engine has indexed something other than your main page, the frameset won’t appear when they link to your site. This means the subpage will appear on the screen without the frame around it. While this isn’t earth shattering, it is a consideration to be borne in mind when designing a page for usability, after all, you want search engines to find out and return everything they can about the site.
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