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April 30, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Web site design overview

Web Design From Scratch offers a great high level view of designing a site. Here’s the skinny:

  1. Know what you’re doing
  2. Know what the site needs to do
  3. Know what the site’s visitors want
  4. Get a good picture of the personality and style of the web site
  5. Sketch out highly successful scenarios
  6. Organise views into a site map
  7. Sketch the essential features & look
  8. Map your visitors’ attention
  9. Arrange the visual elements to work together

I encourage everyone to re-read this article before every project (myself included).

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April 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Designing using information patterns

whole-2It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of 37signals‘ approach to application and Web design. There’s something about their approach that is exceptionally clear and easy to use.

Not too long ago, I found a blog post on their site that reveals the secret: patterns.

I encourage you to give the article a read and refer to it the next time you need to bring clarity to a collection of seemingly disparate information.

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April 15, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Four Sites Deconstructed

jakob_nielsenJakob Nielsen analyzes four sites for usability in his April 14 column Four Bad Designs.

“Bad content, bad links, bad navigation, bad category pages… which is worst for business? In these examples, bad content takes the prize for costing the company the most money.”

Ouch.

Let me know what you think. Nielsen is a polarizing figure for Web designers, so I hope we can have some good discussion.

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June 15, 2007 By Leave a Comment

When HTML Email Goes Horribly Wrong

I get a lot of questions about how to make email newsletters visually appealing. While I understand the desire for adding some sizzle to your communications, This entry from design standards champion, Jeffrey Zeldman, outlines the pitfalls that await the HTML emailer.

The article, When is e-mail like a bad website?, deconstructs an HTML email sent from a major cell phone manufacturer, presumably with plenty of resources to perform usability testing (Be sure to look at the screenshots to see how mangled the messge gets). [Read more...]

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April 27, 2007 By Leave a Comment

What’s precise vs. what’s helpful

2_lowermanhattan_compa0002Take a look at the following collection of New York City subway maps.

The maps on the left are very precise. They are geographically pure. This would be great if they were intended for geographers or anyone else who needs a precise map.

However, these are graphics to inform people who ride the subway. They could care less about the surrounding landscape. They just need to find the right transfer, to get in the right tube. The information and clarity of the subway lines themselves is what’s most important.

The maps on the right are redesigned with the user in mind. They clarify the relationship of the subway lines to one another. Geographical purity is sacrificed, but the result (in theory) is a happier and more civil subway commuter.

Who is your audience? Do they need every tiny detail? What can you remove to provide more clarity to the message.

Remember, design and communication is the practice of subtraction.

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March 17, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Are you(r images) superfluous?

image4Eyetracking points the way to effective news article design is a fascinating article. The first two case studies in the article offer strong scientific evidence that a picture is not always worth a thousand words. The third case study has some disturbing insight into the male psyche.

People read faster and retain more if copy is formatted in a manner that is easily scanned, easy to read from top to bottom. That means subheads, bullets and good use of whitespace. This approach allows readers to answer the questions “where am I?”, “what am I reading?” and “do I want to be here?”

The bottom line is that good, clean text formatting is far more important than a random pretty picture. So be sure to ask yourself if the images you’re using are vital to the page you’re publishing.

Remember: good design is the practice of subtraction, not addition.

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March 7, 2007 By 1 Comment

Electronic Newsletters Best Practices

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted, but this topic has drawn me out from underneath my teetering inbox: electronic newsletters. Everybody’s doing them, or wants to. Why? We’re getting lean and mean. High-gloss print pieces are expensive and require longer lead times. Often we don’t have time to think past the next cup of coffee that will sustain us through the next sprint to the end of the next project.

So, are we spinning our wheels? What are the best practices? Are people even reading these things?

Well, because your Webmaster loves you, I went to great lengths to type “e-newsletter best practice” into Google. I found this gem: It’s time to raise the bar on e-newsletter best practices.

The best advice is item #1: Content is King. Seriously folks, this is 80% of the battle. Content trumps fancy design every time. If you’re pressed for time, groom the content. Get an editor to look at it. See if you can take out words. Make it punchy. Make it lean. Design is the art of subtraction and good writing is the art of reducing the number of words and making each word carry its weight.

This article is rich with good advice and required reading whether you’re thinking about doing a newsletter or want to improve your current newsletter.

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June 22, 2006 By Leave a Comment

What users hate most about Web sites

In What users hate most about Web sites , Sandra Rossi outlines some all-too common Web usability mistakes. To sum them up:

  1. Invasive advertising: luckily, we don’t need to worry about this. However, making anything on your site invasive is a bad idea.
  2. Re-inventing the wheel: people do not want to have to learn how to use a site before they can browse it. Fancy experimental navigation is for your own personal playground site, not for a corporate site.
  3. ‘Leap of faith’ links: that means disclosing information on content and file size. There’s nothing I personally hate more than clicking a link that launches a pdf when I was expecting a web page. The Acrobat plugin takes forever. Always tell people if they’re not going to get a web page
  4. Attention-deficit Web sites: “Users have a special hatred of flashing icons and banners, because they draw the eye away from what is important and hinder their progress,” Cunnington said. Blinking, flashing, buzzing and scrolling text is annoying.
  5. War and Peace length: “A common mistake in Web design is to just [convert] a brochure to the Web. But the Web is its own medium, and communication has to change to reach users. Users are known to read 25 percent slower on the screen than on paper, read fewer words and don’t like long pages which require scrolling down,” she said. ‘Nuff said

So there you have it. The top 5 of “Web No-Nos,” print them out and glue them next to your monitor or tatoo them on your forearm if you’re really hard-core.

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May 26, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Netflix refines web simplicity

In Netflix – Keeps It Reel, BusinessWeek online takes a look at the usability of the Netflix site as compared to Blockbuster (the company Netflix socked in the mouth). Both site designs (Netflix, Blockbuster) have similar designs at first glance. But after a longer look, you can begin to see the points that BusinessWeek is making.

[Read more...]

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May 18, 2006 By Leave a Comment

How users scan Web pages

Jakob Nielsen has posted results of a recent study that uses eye-tracking technology to understand how people scan web pages. Some quick take-aways from this study are:

  • Users won’t read your text thoroughly
  • The first two paragraphs must state the most important information.
  • Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words

Not is this good advice for readers, it’s also good advice for getting the attention of search engine spiders!

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