Designing Websites For Users
Posted by: Karl Quirino on: December 22, 2009
WHERE IS IT?
The Rule-of-Thumb to all Web navigation answers these four questions:
- Where am I?
- Where have I been?
- Where can I go next?
- Where’s the Home Page?
Digital Summit’s approach to designing websites keeps in mind having its navigation structured in as simple and consistent manner as possible. Section titles should be clear and use familiar terms. Poor navigation and page structure frustrates users.
Research done by Jakob Nielsen, a leading web usability expert, reveals that readers tend to scan websites by moving left to right across the top of the page, then left to right slightly below the top of the page, then vertically top to bottom on the left side of the page – in a pattern closely resembling an F. It is this page scanning pattern where placing your most important content should be.
KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE
Page and link order (i.e., going from page 1 to 2 and so on, or from link A to link B) should reflect the experience and needs of site visitors. Thinking ahead of questions they might want answered first, second, third and so on serves as a good guide towards placement of important content on a page.
Then, there are over half a dozen or more browser types being used all over the world so a website should look the same and navigate the same way on different browsers. Checking early during the design planning and build-out stages also involves a number of user-testing procedures our web development teams employ which ensure ease of use. These steps are a must before Digital Summit finalises any website it designs for publication.
THE BONDS THAT BIND
In the mid-1980s, people generally thought mostly about what was in it for themselves. In the 1990s they then started focusing on others, hence – what’s in it for them. Today, however, we’re in an age of the win-win-win situation. Tell them how you benefit and tie it to their benefit.
These days, most websites Digital Summit designs and develops are characterised as being user-centered and able to facilitate communication, information-sharing, interoperabili-ty and, when required, collaboration on the Web.
Connection is important too. If communication is the conveyance of information, then connection is doing it in a way that bonds. We’ve observed that several hundred closely bonded contacts will spread a message faster and farther than several thousand distant acquaintances. The end result of our web design discipline is that it eventually leads to development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services and web applications which all users of the site, including its owners, come back to for more.
Contact us today.
