very intresting, much overlooked !
There are some great websites out there. They are well planned, well executed, well designed and simply effective. For every great website there are three that are could be great, but fall short due to a few small areas of neglect.
We as a community and as an industry have become very good at most aspects of building websites. Just looking through a few CSS Galleries clearly shows the quality of design that is being produced and how much it has improved in just a few years. If you look a layer deeper and view the source of these websites you will see beautiful and semantic XHTML/CSS. It seems the days of table based layouts is finally gone.
The amount of functionality and rich experience that sites have now day are creative, impressive and engaging. Powerful javascript libraries such as jQuery, MooTools and prototype make it easy to produce these experiences rapidly and effortlessly.
But a website is more than the design, code and effects/functionality. Sometimes we have to rethink our approach and find out what is really important. What are the sites objectives and what are our users objectives? More often than not you will find that you could improve the following areas of your websites:
While they are far from the sexiest part of web design, web forms are arguably one of the most important. In almost all cases a web form also functions as a conversion point (a point where a user performs an action that accomplishes a site objective).
Here a user is going to enter in some of their personal information so that they can get something in return. This establishes interest and provides the site owner with some valuable information.
Web forms are often neglected in two ways:
You have a real opportunity to learn more about the people who use your website. That information can not only help you build a better website but also a better business. This marketing information could easily lead to R&D improvements and better products.
Do some research and learn how you can make more effective forms. Your clients, bosses and website owners will thank you many times over.
Content is king. In a recent study 25% of users noted that the number one reason they were to leave a website was due to "weak web copy." The only reason anyone ever goes to any website is because of the content, yet so many website owners neglect the content. Despite it's importance content becomes an afterthought. Appearance, search rankings and conversions tend to be the focal point of most web design projects. What we may forget is that with out great content you still have a poor appearance, you won't rank high and no one will convert.
Rather than trying to write all of the content yourself, hire someone. It will be worth it, I promise you. If nothing else write the bulk of the copy and hire someone to make it consistent with the proper voice and tone.
With a little thought it becomes painfully obvious, most website footers are absolutely useless. A user takes the time and effort to read (or scan) through an entire page, and when they reach the bottom they are rewarded with links that don't fit anywhere else, a copyright notice and maybe an address and phone number.
The point where page content ends is a very high action zone. That means that users who get to that point have a high probability of clicking on any link that comes below it. Rather than some meaningless legal links and an address create a footer that gives the user a place to find additional content that may interest them.
This could be:
Many designers fail to realize how many people still prefer to print off websites rather than try and read them on screen. There are two significant benefits to paying attention to the print version.
The most obvious benefit is that it can improve the user experience of the site. Users who visit your site and print it out will actually read the content and are more likely to revisit the site and make an action (or conversion). If the printed version is difficult to read and work with they are highly likely to simply recycle the paper and forget they ever visited your site in the first place.
The second benefit is it could be a real competitive advantage. If a user prints off two web sites, and yours clearly has more attention to detail in the print version, they are much more likely to use your product/services over the competitors.
You can improve the print version simply by:
How users behave and use a website is one of the most important factors you could possibly focus on. Despite this fact it is so commonly neglected by both website owners and website designers. Businesses need to spend more money on the analysis of user behavior and web design companies need to promote the service more heavily.
Even a website that is built using an effective strategy, user testing and best practices is a best guess at what will be most effective.
If you actually pay attention to how users behave and analyize that behavior you can discover countless ways to continually improve your website.
Have some feedback? Leave a commentvery intresting, much overlooked !
I asked me several times about the footer. Why do the people “forget” it. Sometimes we see a wonderfull site than we take a look at the footer and bam. nothing usefull there. it is like the history of a peacock and its feet.
Some great points made, will definitely bookmark this page. I totally agree that a relevant and well thought out footer makes a big difference to a pages usability.
Excellent selection. I have to admit, since Wordpress has been on the scene, it never seems to lack on its expandable uses. Another great idea. Brilliant!
Great!
Very useful information. Thank you very much
my thanks
my thanx
my thanks
Great information! Very useful even if you already know the content given here this is a great reminder of things often forgotten!
Great information! Very useful even if you already know the content given here this is a great reminder of things often forgotten!
we can see google’s pages, it give us a best practice I think. Also yahoo’s style, very fashion.
This is a really informative post. Its thinks like this that get overlooked and forgot about.
Thanks Lorne. Sometimes when things are so simple they are easy to miss even when they are so important.
Great info in there. Excellent points. Thanks for the reminder about elements that so easily get overlooked.
Thanks for the response Not That. It is so true that sometimes the most important parts of anything are overlooked or swept aside even though it is so obvious that they should receive a lot of attention.
I am working on a checklist that will remind me how I should prioritize the building of sites so that I don’t spend too much effort in areas that are not all that important.
Some of the most obvious things are regularly either overlooked, or put on that “soon as I do this, I’ll do that” burner.
Thanks for calling these to light. I’ll work on them for improving my own fledgling humor startup.
Fairly nifty as well how you’ve PWYP (practice what you’ve preached) in the placement of your commenting in the footer zone.
Thanks again.
on December 25, 2009
I tend to make the mistake of over-looking the footer and the forms. I will be focusing on these more from now on. My first step was to change the login pages for all my Wordpress sites, so the forms look nice.
thanks