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Web Design
Get in, Get it, Get out. This is what good web design is all about.
Consider what you do when you arrive on any web site for the first term.
- • you make an instant decision as to the site’s credibility
- • if it passes you look for further links to achieve your goal
- • once you find the information you download, print or play the media
- • you make a decision whether to bookmark the site for future use
- • finally you leave the site
Research shows this all happens very quickly. Generally within 1 minute 30 seconds.
Web Design Conventions
You and everyone else that uses the web is task orientated. From a design perspective this means that your web design must always help your visitors achieve their task with the minimum of effort. Make it difficult and visitors will simply leave.
Web Design Conventions help users because they do not need to think what is required. They’ve seen it before on countless other web sites so it is easy.
Remember 99.99% of the time your visitors are on other web pages so unless you are Microsoft or the BBC you break web design conventions at your peril.
Web Personas
Understanding your visitors is vital in web design and you need to be careful not to give visitors skills and background knowledge that they do not possess.
Remember you have an understanding of your organisation that your customers simply do not have.
Before starting any web design sit down and draw up “personas” of typical clients. Make these as graphical as possible even including a photograph.
At every design meeting pin the persona to the wall and constantly ask yourself whether what you are suggesting fits the persona’s skills and background.
Test, Test, Test
Make sure you check your site on as many computers as you can with as many browser and operating systems as possible.
I recently went to see a prospective client whose main search facility did not work in Internet Explorer browsers. He didn’t know as he used Firefox for his browser as did his developer. It had been like that for 9 months!
