You’re in business to sell something. You have some sort of action you’d like customers to take while on your website. Are you making that action and how to take it clear? Or are you setting up roadblocks that make the process frustrating which leads to lost business?
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Apr
09
2010
Are You Standing in the Way of Your Customers?
Mar
26
2010
Balancing Good Design with Needed Functionality
When designing a website or online service, companies often have a whole slew of great ideas for functionality. When is enough enough? Can a simple design suffice? How do you make choices about what features to incorporate?
Even the simplest of interfaces, Twitter, has begun to add more complexity with new retweet features, lists, trending topics, and more. Aesthetically, “good design” means design that is appealing to the eye, and is easily navigated visually. With this idea, it is important that complex interfaces are well designed so that the users who prefer simplicity do not feel overwhelmed. – Finding the Balance of Design and Functionality (ReadWriteStart)
Oct
08
2009
Why Don’t You Want Customers to Contact You?
Ever done a bunch of research, finally decided to get a product, gone to the website and found the only way to contact them is through a contact form? While eCommerce websites are usually pretty savvy about letting their customers contact them through multiple ways, normal businesses sometimes give off the “go away” vibe unintentionally.
Aug
26
2009
Navigation Isn’t a Feature of Your Website, It IS Your Website
Discussions about navigation on a website usually revolve around where to put them and what items should be in them. But without navigation on a website, there is no website, just the one page where a visitor entered your site.
Jul
13
2009
When They Can't Figure Out Your Site, People Turn to Search – Have One?
Usually when people come to a website, they’re looking for something. And they hope they can find it on the first page, but if not, most are willing to scan the page to see if there’s a link that may lead them there. This behavior really points out the importance both of properly organizing the information on your website, as well as having a navigation/menu system that people can quickly and easily understand.
Jul
07
2009
Your Website is Your Business Card
What does your paper business card look like? It probably has your name, your company logo, some contact information and maybe a quick tagline summarizing what your company does. People can find all the information they need to contact you just by glancing at your card.
Jul
01
2009
What Your Website Visitors Initially See – The 5 Second Glimpse Test
The first time visitors come to a site they usually spend less than 5 seconds figuring out if they’re in the right place. Right place being, of course, where they can get whatever information it is that they’re looking for. During those 5 seconds you need to communicate what your site is about, what information you have to offer, and how they’ll be able to navigate the site, so it touches on design, usability, content and marketing…
What do visitors see during those 5 seconds? Try The 5 Second Glimpse Test:
Jun
26
2009
The Value of a Website's Tagline
There’s nothing new about taglines. They’ve been used in different types of media for quite some time as a way to summarize the entire company/product/organization in a short bit of space/time. On a website, the tagline is usually a short bit of a text near the logo to describe what that site is. They’re the first glimpse into exactly what it is you do. If the tagline isn’t clear, visitors will have to spend more time figuring that out (which they may not). Often visitors enter your site somewhere other than the homepage and the tagline may be the only real description on the page where they do enter.
A good tagline should:
- Be clear & informative
- Be short & concise (six to eight words)
- Differentiate your business
- Offer at least one clear benefit
- Be personable and catchy (hopefully a bit clever)
- Be unique
- Stand on its own
This may seem like a lot of weight on just a short phrase, but good taglines are invaluable for differentiating yourself and quickly describing what it is you do. Once you have a good one you’ll be able to use it on all your marketing materials and advertising. If you don’t know how well your tagline works, try showing someone (or telling) your tagline and see what it is they think you do.
How do you use your tagline?
(photo by Delphine – Very very busy :/ @ Flickr CC)
Technorati tags: tagline, design, marketing, uability, business
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May
07
2009
On a Crusade Against Drop-Down Menus
Anyone who worked with me at the publishing company will know that I am completely (almost) against using drop-down menus on websites. Why? Well there are lot’s of reasons…
They’re cool
I hate using anything because it’s cool. If you have a business reason for using something, that’s one thing, but using something because it’s cool, just isn’t. Most things that are used for this reason are annoying and quickly become yesterday’s fad. Besides, you’re running a business, not trying to join a high school clique.
They don’t work well
While this problem has improved, many sites still don’t implement drop down menus very well. They’re hard to use and clicking on just the right link is very difficult.
They don’t show up on mobile devices
This has been improved as well. But even if they do work on mobile devices, they’re even more difficult to use than when you have a mouse.
What about people without a mouse
There are people out there using computers without mice – text readers and other devices for people with disabilities, and other devices. Some drop-down menus will have accessibility for people with keyboards or other devices, but often this is forgotten.
They’re a crutch
In order to properly (if there is such a thing) use drop down menus, information needs to be organized in a way that makes sense. There needs to be some sort of hierarchy. Most sites that use drop down menus don’t have a true information hierarchy, they just use cute titles that only make sense to the designer or marketing guy. And there’s almost always a bunch of pages that don’t fit anywhere and are thrown under a Misc. heading – not very helpful.
It’s hard to find things
People are much faster at scanning a page than mousing over menu items to see what’s in them. While your drop downs may seem like they’re saving time, they really are causing seconds of time for every use – that really adds up.
They’re annoying
I don’t know how many times I’ll go to a site with drop down menus and my mouse will happen to be over one of them. All of a sudden a menu pops up when all I’m trying to do is read an article. Now I have to take the time to move my mouse so I can do what I came to the site to do. Or, I’ll be trying to navigate through a site but I can’t seem to get my mouse in the right place to keep the menu open long enough to click on the text – it can be pretty trying to click on a small word just to go to another page.
They’re a fad
For the most part, large sites have started to go away from drop-down menus (yay!). They’ve found that people can scan through a long list of links much faster than they can hunt through different drop-down menus. Having all the major links on a page means that it’ll be easier for people to find other reasons to stay on your site, instead of leaving or clicking off.
(photo by puroticorico)
Technorati tags: drop-down menu, usability, design, business, marketing strategy, marketing
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May
05
2009
Splash Pages – Thumbs Up or Down?
Now, I have to agree with Todd Zeigler over at The Bivings Group – normally I hate splash pages, especially as a user. But as Todd said, they seem to be extremely useful for collecting information (usually emails). It seems that sometimes you have to be a bit obnoxious for people to actually give you their information.
However, I want to insist that splash pages need to be used for one purpose – and one purpose only – collecting information from site visitors – getting them to sign up for your service, newsletter, whatever. They should NOT be used for a pretty flash movie or some other annoyance that serves no real purpose other than to annoy everyone. I don’t care if you spent a lot of money on that supposedly cool introduction. If you’re not using it for a real purpose, don’t do it. If you’re going to annoy your visitors, at least do it for an actual purpose – collecting information for a specific reason.
I also have to agree with Todd regarding the implementation of a splash page:
If you are going to deploy a splash page, please, please, please set it up so that a user only sees the page periodically. We usually set it up so that users who do not sign up see the page every two weeks or so. Also, make sure to set it up so that if users have already signed up for your email list they never see the splash page again. These steps will minimize the disruption to users who visit your site frequently.
(photo by sergio tudela)
Technorati tags: splash page, usability, design, business, marketing strategy, marketing
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