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Business websites - Top Three Web Design Priorities
Web design that works |
Business websites
What's the common theme in all the business-killing
usability problems? They all involve simple usability
principles that have been the same for ten years. None
of them involve advanced "Web 2.0" technology; none
would be fixed by implementing any of the fancy stuff
that everybody's talking about.
Indeed, the biggest design flaws destroying business
value typically involve:
1) Communicating clearly so that users understand
you. Users allocate minimal time to initial website
visits, so you must quickly convince them that the
site's worthwhile.
2) Providing information users want. Users must be
able to easily determine whether your services meet
their needs and why they should do business with you.
3) Offering simple, consistent page design, clear
navigation, and an information architecture that puts
things where users expect to find them.
Get these three right, and you'll enhance your site's
credibility, ease a user's way through the site, and
thus do far more for the site's business value than any
JavaScript trick.
Better Website Content
Content rules. It did ten years ago, and it does today.
People don't use things they don't understand. Writing
for the Web is still undervalued, and most sites spend
too few resources refining the information they offer to
users.
The same goes for photos: On countless sites, product
images are too small, fuzzy, or murky, or they're simply
shot from a bad angle, making the product hard to see.
These same sites lavish pixels on big glamour
illustrations that our eyetracking studies show attract
no fixations.
Generally, all you need are plainspoken words and clean
photos. Nonetheless, these two design elements get
almost no coverage in the trade press. Every month,
there seems to be a new article in a leading publication
about 3D spinning views, even though 3D is nearly
useless in most cases. But you never see an article
about how to write better headlines or take a clearer
product photo. |
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Why Useless, Fancy Stuff Gets Promoted
New technology equals news. Whether in a newspaper or a
blog, nobody wants to run stories about the same old,
same old. As the saying goes, "man bites dog" gets press
coverage, but "dog bites man" doesn't. Yet, if you're in
charge of prioritizing health system resources, you
should invest in helping humans who've been bitten by
dogs. A clinic to cure dogs that have been bitten by
humans would stand empty most of the time. That the main
usability guidelines have remained constant for ten
years is no reason to ignore them: it's a reason to
believe that they have durable value and relate to deep
human needs.
Companies champion technologies because they can be sold
as products and consulting services. Go to any tradeshow
and you'll see plenty of booths pushing various fancy
technologies -- most of which will make very little
difference to your bottom line. But each of these
technologies has smooth-talking salespeople who will
invite your executives out for a round of golf. In
contrast, no trade show booth features Photographers'
Society representatives saying "clear photos move more
products," even though it's the truth. Nor does the
Writers' Guild cold-call Internet managers to sell them
on the value of bulleted lists.
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