What makes a good web user experience? Don t get in the way of all the information:

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1 User Experience Fundamentals for Web Design What makes a good web user experience? Ask yourself; will my persona feel like the site is being built just for them? The wonderful thing is by focusing on this one individual you'll actually end up building a site that lots of people will enjoy using. It gives your site a focus that you just wouldn't have if you thought you were building it for just everyone on the web. Understand how people browse the web, figure out what the goals they came to your site with. Its all about information, each page should also clearly show what it's about, using a descriptive page heading and if it's relevant informative pictures and summary text. What causes people to leave your site, Remember, your visitors are looking for information. The content you give them needs to make sense to them, not just to you. They might not have the same level of knowledge about the topics you cover or the same levels of interest in them as you do. You need to make sure that your content speaks clearly to people right from the beginning. The Back button is only one click away and you don't often get a second chance. Don t get in the way of all the information: The information that your visitors are looking for is going to be harder to find if it's surrounded by clutter. Simple design doesn't mean boring. What I mean by this is that all elements of the page should be helping to tell the story, Consistency pays off. Once visitors have learned how your site works they will be able to turn their focus to your content. Consistent design means they can learn faster and apply the knowledge to new areas of the site. Find standard controls that will make sense to them when they visit your site.

2 Navigation: So depending on their task visitors might use any combination of the navigational elements to first situate themselves and then look for the content they need. Or to quickly realize that they are on the wrong site and they go elsewhere. It's important to give some serious thought to how you will structure the content on your site preferably before you've even added an Take the time to think about the best way of categorizing your content. Even if you're working on an existing site, the sooner you create a good content model, sometimes called the information architecture, the sooner you can arrange your content in a way that makes sense to your users. Choose a menu location that works for the number menu items you think you will have and then populate it with terms that your visitors will understand and can differentiate from the other menu terms. Make sure if you have submenus, these are easily accessible using the controls on your site even for people who are slower mouse users than you are. There are two rules of thumb that have sprung up in many designs that don't really have a background in research. Or rather they do, but that research is being misinterpreted. The first is that all content should be no more than three clicks away from the homepage or else visitors will lose interest. Chapter 6: So make sure that your search feature is easily accessible to people from every page in your site. Chapter 9: Fitt's Law states that it's faster to hit lager targets closer to you, than it is to hit smaller targets further away from you.

3 Site layout If you can't write a short sentence that says what the purpose of your site is, then there is no way you are going to be able to get your visitors to understand what you do. As an example let's say you are a florist and you have a site that lets people order flowers for delivery, as well as advertising your physical shop. You have flowers for all occasions from weddings to prom corsages, to funerals. So what's your site about? Well, it is about getting flowers to people in a certain geographic area for the events in their life. This suggests a short sentence like "Ventura Area Flowers delivered for all of life's special events." I am sure that you can do better than this for your own site. Remember, this sentence is going to appear on every page of your site, so as well as being descriptive; it is useful if it also includes the terms that people are likely to search on. Category Pages of the top- level pages for each section of the site. They provide an introduction to the collection of articles that make up a section of the site. Category pages work as a drilldown point for information within the section. Obviously, they also help by informing visitors about the key points within the section and allow them to navigate to sub- content. The Category page is meant to display just the most important or the most recent information in this area of the site. People can drilldown to more detail by clicking on the links to Detail Pages, or to Sub- categories if you have those too. By thinking about what type of content you have on your site, you can quickly work out which page style to use. Of course, you aren't tied in to using just one type of content arrangement on your site. You can make some pages Linear, some Sequential, and some Detail based. The important thing is to make sure that you have consistency between different pages of the same type. Writing for the Web: So, by using clear headings, an informative summary, and concise body text, you will help get your message across. Lists are a great way of making several points in quick succession with minimal space, and giving people informative link text, means they'll know quickly where to go next on your site, which keeps them engaged.

4 Homepage: The Homepage is the place to show off the freshest and most important content on the site. Don't waste space with a welcome message; instead make people feel welcome by giving them plenty of content to dive into. The Homepage is place to orient people, give them high- level data, and then point them to the places they should check out next on your site. The Homepage is also a good location for links to top tasks. These links might be in the form of page summary or they could be a list of, "I want to" style navigation links in the content area. Category and Landing Pages: Category pages correspond to your navigation menu items. If you only have a small quantity of content on your site, you may not need Category pages, because you can direct people from the homepage or menus, directly to your detail pages. As your site grows though or if you already have a lot of detail pages, then Category pages help to keep people on track, as they navigate through your site. Detail and Product Pages: Images help users understand the concepts you are trying to get across to them, just as long as the images are chosen to be good examples of the topic being discussed. So whether you are adding images to describe your product or to describe your topic you need to consider what your visitors need. That is clear, helpful pictures that let them we see the important concepts at a glance. Forms: Forms are a big deal; people don't like filling them out. They particularly don't like answering marketing questions they don't see the value in. Or questions they know will be used to send them information they probably don't want. The answer is to ask the smallest number of questions possible and to do it in context at a time when your visitors are ready to reciprocate. Using Media to Help Tell Your Story: Feel free to add multimedia content, but always ask yourself what's the purpose, what visitor need does this content serve, and is this the best format to meet that need? Sometimes, it's hard to be objective about a piece of multimedia content. You love it, and you want to share it with the world. However, remember that your site visitors may not share your tastes. Think carefully about your visitor's goals on the site, and ask yourself, does this content really enhance their experience?

5 Every part of the page is valuable; so don't waste it with useless graphics. Make sure you are using graphics for explanation, not just for decoration. That's not to say you must not use decoration on your site; a good visual style can help set the tone of your site. Logos and decorative elements in the header, footer, and margins might well be part of your style. However, these decorative elements should match the color scheme and style of your site and shouldn't draw attention away from the content. Where you want to avoid using purely decorative content is in the body area of your pages where visitors are looking for information. To drive that point home, consider this, Jens Riegelsberger and his colleagues at University College London looked at the impact of using stock photography on websites. What they found was that although the perceived trustworthiness of poorly performing vendors was increased when they used stock photography, perceived trustworthiness of vendors with good reputations was decreased. Balancing Adverts and Content If your site makes its money at least in part from advertising revenue, you probably struggle with the balance of ad words and content. From a user experience perspective, there is a sliding scale of expectations based on the site's brand. Visitors have different expectations of a high- end site, where profit from goods sold is sufficient not to need ads, than they do from free content sites like a forum where ads pay for service space. So, how far can you push it? Well, we'll forget for a minute that, that's the wrong question. The answer lies in how valuable and unique your content is. When you give your visits as relevant adverse, you're actually doing them a favor. Most people now grudgingly understand that they are getting free access to your content and return for being shown adverts. They are more likely to look favorably on your site if the ad content at least corresponds to the site's content. Summary: Good Design Practice: Simple design lets your visitors find the information they're looking for quickly. Consistent design means your site's navigation is easy to remember and standard design makes the interaction easy to learn. By sticking to these three principles, you give visitors the fastest and easiest route to finding the information they are looking for. Without your users, you have nothing. For that reason, it's essential that you build the whole site with your users' experience in mind. Every time you make a design decision, ask, does this make the experience better for my users? So by considering your users' experience with your site, you'll make it much more likely that they'll find what they need, leave with a good feeling, recommend your site to others, and come back to use it again and again in the future.