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Some of the primary concerns of a Website owner should be:
- to present a clear set of choices for the visitor
- to focus on a site design that is easily used and comprehended
- to value the visitor's time
- to display consistent navigation methods
Websites need to have enough depth to be indexed as a site relevant
to the topic for the purpose of search engine positioning. At
face value, this will detract from your primary purpose of offering
products or services. The answer to this is that these types of
pages don't need to linked in the home page area, but can be grouped
under a category heading. If the visitor chooses to explore these
pages, they are available one click down.
These pages may also end up being entry pages from a search engine
link. They must almost give the site's options clearly to a casual
visitor.
Usability is a primary concern for designers, whether they create
Websites or any other product. The example that I like to use
is that if you approach a glass door and push on it when it needs
to be pulled, then it is poorly designed. Large flat spaces tell
us that doors need to be pushed. Handle-like bars tell us that
doors need to be pulled. Things are usable when the information
conveyed by the product combines with the information that experience
has already given us to make the product's use self-evident.
Websites tend to grow organically as new ideas or new products
drive the creation of new pages. It is important to reconsider
navigation every time new areas or pages are added.
The following books by Jakob Nielsen and Donald Norman take some
attention and thought to get through, but are very good at describing
design and usability issues based on research and common sense.
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