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Website Development & Hosting

Ten Good Deeds in Web Design

1.

Place  your  name  and  logo on  every  page  and  make  the  logo  a  link  to  the  homepage

(except on the homepage itself, where the logo should not be a link: never have a link that

points right back to the current page). 

2.

Provide search if the site has more than 100 pages. 

3.

Write straightforward and simple headlines and page titles that clearly explain what the

page is about and that will make sense when read out of context in a search engine results

listing. 

4.

Structure the page to facilitate scanning and help users ignore large chunks of the page

in a single glance: for example, use grouping and subheadings to break a long list into

several smaller units. 

5.

Instead of cramming everything about a product or topic into a single, infinite page, use

hypertext to structure the content space into a starting page that provides an overview

and several secondary pages that each focus on a specific topic. The goal is to allow users

to avoid wasting time on those subtopics that do not concern them. 

6.

Use  product  photos,  but  avoid  cluttered  and  bloated  product  family  pages  with  many

photos. Instead have a small photo on each of the individual product pages and link the

photo to one, or more, larger ones that show as much detail as users need. This varies

depending  on  type  of  product.  Some  products  may  even  need  zoomable  or  rotatable

photos,  but  reserve  all  such  advanced  features  for  the  secondary  pages.  The  primary

product page must be fast and should be limited to a thumbnail shot. 

7.

Use relevance-enhanced image reduction when preparing small photos and images:

instead of simply resizing the original image to a tiny and unreadable thumbnail, zoom in

on the most relevant detail and use a combination of cropping and resizing. 

8.

Use link titles to provide users with a preview of where each link will take them, before

they have clicked on it. 

9.

Ensure that all-important pages are accessible for users with disabilities, especially

blind users. 

10.

Do the same as everybody else: if most big websites do something in a certain way, then

follow  along  since  users  will  expect  things  to  work  the  same  on  your  site.  Remember

Jakob s Law of the Web User Experience: users spend most of their time on other sites,

so that s where they form their expectations for how the web works. 

.inally, always test your design with real users as a reality check. People do things in odd and

unexpected ways, so even the most carefully planned project will learn from usability testing. 

Copyright  NESIS 2002

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