How to keep people on your site

Posted on Jul 29, 2008 by Melanie to Web Design

We live in an information-saturated world. There are more than 5 billion websites out there so people have a lot of choices. This means if people cannot figure out what your site is about almost immediately they will move on to the next site. So how do you make sure they stick around long enough for you to really get a chance to persuade them to buy your product or use your service? You need to control your visitor’s eyes of course. Don’t worry it sounds a lot more complicated than it is.

First of all, you need to provide a quick summary of your site. This does not mean you have to write a paragraph about what your company does. Actually that is quite the opposite of what you should do. You just need to find a way to let your visitor know what you do as soon as he gets on the page. There are many ways to do this. If you are in the retail business you could feature one of your products on the page; this lets the consumer know what kinds of products you are selling and lets him know he has come to the right place. This hotspot or feature spot also works as a great starting point, this is the place your visitors will look at first and then work from that place. If you know what they are looking at first it is easier to direct them to the next place you want them to look.

So where do you position this feature spot? Luckily most pages have a similar layout so most readers tend to all look to the same places when they first get to a page. If you don’t know where hotspots are you can check out this map from Google. The darker the area the more time visitors spend looking at that spot.

Aside from the feature spot your site needs to have a headline. Just like the headline of an article draws you in the story the headline of your website should draw in visitors. It should convey a central message that relays what your site is about.

Finally, a good way to get a message across quickly is by using images. People are drawn to images more than text because they can get a large amount of information with very little effort. Images let you show your customer instead of telling them something.

Now to make sure that you have achieved your goal you can test your site. To do this you will need to requite someone who has never seen the site. Ask them to sit in front of your computer and pull up the site. After two seconds close the browser. Do not warn them that you are going to do this. Then ask them the impressions of you r site. What did the notice, what do they think the site is about, did they trust the site? Using their answers you can go back and make adjustments where needed.

http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/Controlling-Your-Visitors-Eyes.htm

Tags: website usability

Simplicity

Posted on Aug 22, 2007 by Jonathan to General

Simple websites are easy to use, easy to understand, and nice to look at. In my opinion most websites are filled with too many complicated ideas and have way too many paths / options available to the user. To me, any path that leads the user away from the goal is a distraction and should be depreciated.

What seems to happen during the collaborative stages of development is that many ideas are added to the original set of ideas. It would seem that a website featuring many great ideas would be a great website. If well executed, a collaboration of great ideas can (in some cases) become a great website. On the other hand, projects featuring too many ideas often turn out confusing and not as effective as the simple ones.

Heres an example:

Lets say you needed to get to a friends house for a BBQ. He lives all the way across town and you need to be there in an hour. I would probably prefer to get one set of directions and probably from mapquest.

Another approach would be to call some friends and get some opinions on how they would navigate across town. Who knows maybe somebody knows a shortcut? Or a route thats more scenic? Is there road construction? Wait, maybe I should call Steve, he grew up in that area. By the time your done with this approach, the chances of getting lost on the way to the BBQ are tripled.

I know this example doesnt necessarily apply to webdesign and the collaborative process but I think it helps my point.

Simplicity as a result of a creative process is “the ultimate sophistication”, as Leonardo da Vinci said. Achieving simplicity is a difficult task, especially in webdesign. Here you have designers with one set of opinions, clients with another, technologists add another twist. Then to top it all off – SEO plays a factor.

In order to make sure your website is effective, its important to identify the goal of the site and make sure that goal doesnt become depreciated.

Tags: website usability

Usability is…

Posted on Apr 9, 2007 by Jonathan to Web Design

Usability is critical.

If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage doesn’t clearly state what a company offers, people leave. If users get lost, they leave. If the information cant be found easily, they leave.

Do you see a pattern here?

One thing to remember when designing for the web is that websurfers tend to have a very short attention span. There are plenty of other websites available and leaving is their first line of defense.

How can I prevent my customers from leaving? A great place to start is by improving the sites usability.

Usability is defined by five components:

LEARNABILITY: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
EFFICIENCY: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
MEMORABILITY: : When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
ERRORS: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
SATISFACTION: How pleasant is it to use the design?

If you are interested in learning more about usabilty- here is a good resource:

Tags: website usability

Good UI

Posted on Jan 8, 2007 by Jonathan to Web Design

What makes a User Interface good?

To me, good ui comes down to one deciding factor – Ease of use.

Before the ui is designed the client and agency generally compile and agree to a site architecture. although this stage comes before the actual ui design , it can be a key factor in how the ui turns out. If the client pushes for a site architecture that has upwards of 10 – 15 navigation items (i.e. Home, About, Philosophy, Products, Location, Background, Contact, etc, etc, etc) the chances of the site having a good UI are greatly reduced. On the other hand, a site architecture that consists of around 5 main navigation items with sub sections has a much better chance of success.

The rule of less is more comes into play here. A site that has 12 buttons accross the top for its navigation not only looks bad, it is also confusing to use. Additionally, if the companies business model is selling sprockets – the best way to insure that the sprockets are seen is to place the sprockets button next to as few other buttons as possible. This will increase its chances of being pressed and eliminate the chances of a user getting distracted by other navigational items. To do this its just a question of organization. For example, the items: management, background, philosphy, & careers could be combined into one item called About The Company then further divided into subsections.

Of course this is just my opinion, being more of a minimalist I tend to take things that are complicated and reduce them into their more basic form.

Tags: ui, website usability

Web Site Usability

Posted on Dec 28, 2006 by Jonathan to Web Design

There is no doubt that websites today have taken design and technology to a new level. While progression is almost always a good thing – It seems like these new technologies such as Flash, PHP, AJAX, XHTML, etc aren’t always making the sites any easier to use.

Case in point: Yesterday, my mom called me into her home office with a frustrated tone. While navigating through a realestate education website she found herself at a dead end. Normally, when she asks for my help I can find her a way out. In this case, there was no way out. The link to the information she was looking for was somehow overlooked. Whether it hadn’t loaded properly or the the information was left out entirely – Im not sure. But the information that she needed was not available. So we picked up the phone and called a real live person. Problem solved.

This brings me to my topic – a site that is not easy to use is not helping anybody. In order for your Web site to be successful, users must visit the site and find what they are looking for quickly and easily. Bottom line – stick to the basics when designing a site and dont let the technology come before the purpose.

Tags: website usability