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>> Web Design Tips

Have you ever visited a Website and been confronted by a home page that tells you nothing and makes you wait for an animated movie to load? That technology is called Flash, created by Macromedia Corp. If you are like me, you quickly find the "skip intro" link to proceed to the site's real content.

I'm not sure who watches those Flash animations besides the person who designed them and the person who paid for them. Studies show that this type of technology does not make a site more usable to visitors. It's most likely a statement by the company about their image, but it's generally trivial and unnecessary.

What do visitors want? There's been quite a bit of research on this. Personally, I like the work of Jakob Nielsen (www.useit.com). Dr. Nielsen has developed a number of rules for Website usability based on his scientific research on the subject. His testing includes how much time is spent on various events, navigation habits, and even includes eye-tracking data.

These design rules include his findings:

Visitors tend to scan Web pages instead of reading them. They are very put off by walls of text. Your writing needs to be "chunked" with key paragraphs indented or otherwise called out. Many users read pages in an F pattern, across the top, down the side, across the middle, and then back down the side.

Consistency is a key principle. Nielsen writes, "...when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience." Visitors feel more secure knowing that the actions they take will always produce the same results, and insecure when the actions taken do not bring consistent results. Because users spend most of their time on other Websites, it pays to make your site behave according to standard design expectations.

Neilsen has also found that users are highly goal-driven, they visit sites because there's something they want to accomplish (either to find information or to purchase a product). Failing to provide the information that users seek is failure.

Emphasize what your site offers that is of value to users and how your services differ from those of key competitors. Avoid standard marketing hyperbole because visitors just turn it off. Avoid using any approaches that appear like advertising because visitors are used to tuning them out as well.

While people are naturally drawn to pictures, particularly pictures of other people, the best use of graphics is to have images that are relevant to your product or service, and add information to the written content.

Clearly show what it is that your company does. A tag line that explicitly summarizes what the site or company does is useful.

Never have a link that points to the current page. The visitor becomes frustrated that they've waste their time selecting a link that simply reloads the same page.

Nielsen advocates the use of newsletters as a way to keep your product or service on the mind of users. When they are ready to buy, they will have a sense of familiarity with your offerings.

Overall, Nielsen's approach is to get back to basics. This includes navigation that isn't confusing, text that is very readable, descriptive product pages that compare and contrast your products, clear information about who you are and what you do, and a minimum of marketing hype.

Published in sections: Marketing Articles ::