3/24/2023 0 Comments Mac no faux pasYou also need to consider breadth versus depth. The remaining items on the site should be available if and when people decide they need it, but the focus should be on helping people quickly find the most important content. For example, financial-services companies find that 80 percent of visitors to their site simply need to check the status of their accounts, so it’s important to provide fast access to that information. A better approach is to apply the 80-20 rule: 20 percent of the content can usually meet 80 percent of users’ most important needs. Without answers to these questions, most designers end up creating a site that strives to be all things to all people. Try to develop policies that keep the focus on content of high value to your primary audience. The larger an information system becomes, the harder it is to find anything in it. How can I define what content to include? You can’t meet all of their needs equally you need to prioritize. Designers of such sites have failed to ask themselves the following critical questions at the outset: What are the short- and long-term goals for the site?įor example, will the site offer only basic marketing materials at first but evolve to integrate product ordering and customer service as well? Who is the primary audience and what are its members’ most important needs?Īudiences for your site may include existing and prospective customers, investors, the media, business partners, or employees of your company. Why does this happen, and how can you avoid it?Ĭonfusing main pages are often the result of poor planning. Obviously, that’s not a sensible way to welcome people to your site. The immediate effect is utter confusionthere are simply too many options from which to choose. The main pages of many corporate Web sites are simply overwhelming, often crowded with 50 or more links. How can you learn from this frustration? The answer lies in understanding the difference between exact and ambiguous organization schemes and when to use each.įrustration 3: The Overwhelming Main Page In both cases, the site isn’t organized in a way that helps you find the information you need. Other times you visit a site looking for information on a more general topic or seeking help with a certain task, only to be frustrated by an organization scheme that doesn’t address either topics or tasks. Sometimes you visit a Web site knowing exactly what you’re looking for, but you have a hard time guessing which link to follow from the main page. If you do put a search engine on your site, remember the “no dead-ends” rule: always provide links from the search-result screens to alternative ways of searching or browsing the site. One problem is that users and authors may use different words to describe the same concept (for example, car versus automobile). However, a search engine can actually decrease visitors’ ability to find what they’re looking for users often type in a keyword and receive a list of unrelated documents or the dreaded “no hits” message. One tool that promises lots of bang for the buck is the search engine, which automatically indexes the full text of a site. Indexes, on the other hand, work well for users who know the name of the item they’re looking for, allowing them to bypass the hierarchy altogether. A table of contents, for example, offers a bird’s-eye view of the hierarchy, helping users navigate quickly. Other navigational tools use a printed-book metaphor. Other ways to provide contextual clues are to put your organization’s name on every page and carry the main page’s graphic identity throughout the site. One such tool is the equivalent of a “You Are Here” symbol on a map: hyperlinks at the top or side of each page show where the user is in your site’s hierarchy and how to return to a higher level.
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