We all know that WWW stands for world wide web, but what exactly should that mean to webmasters? One thing it means is that almost every surfer who visits your site will have seen hundreds of other sites first. They therefore arrive with expectations based on those previous experiences, not only in content terms and whether you site is easy on the eye, but also about that geeky-sounding thing: site usability. And right away I confess that this is going to be a case of do as I say, and not as I do.
We are all aware that this is important stuff, but at most we usually think only about whether our join links stand out enough. There are many more factors to consider and you could be costing yourself a lot of money if you ignore them. Study after study shows that surfers quickly become “trained” by the layouts they encounter most often. That reality, together with common perceptions of how the internet should be utilized, means that if you offer something different, visitors to your site will not be at ease. That is not what you want, when you are trying to sell them something.
Where is it?
Surfers expect to see certain features on the sites they visit and they expect them to be in specific locations. If you offer these features but place them “wrongly” you might be dismayed just how few people see them at all and downgrade your site accordingly. Surfers have very short attention spans: they can afford to have, because they have thousands to choose from and they will often go visit another site, rather than figure out how yours works.
- Links to other areas of your site are expected to be in the upper left of the screen.
- Off-site links are expected to be on upper right of the screen or on the left, below the internal links.
- “Home” links are expected: one at the top left of the screen and another bottom center.
- Advertising banners are expected to be at the top of the browser window.
- If you offer a search facility, it is expected to be in the top center of the screen.
- If visitors may log in or register on your site, they should be able to do so from the upper left corner of the screen.
- If you are selling merchandise and using a shopping cart, its links should be at the top right.
- FAQ, help and contact links are also expected to be top right of the screen.
So the first rule when designing a site is to cater for rather than confound these expectations. However, some sites may have the chance to turn them to extra advantage because, when our well-trained surfer loads a new page, he or she instantly scans the first screen, paying particular attention to the locations which appear in the list above. So let’s say that your site doesn’t use a shopping cart: don’t simply leave the spot one would usually occupy empty or fill it with a non-productive graphic, put a small promotion, link or button, there. It will be seen.
Surfers’ expectation of a promo at the top of the screen should be of interest, particularly for the many who have become near paranoid about not exposing surfers to a sales pitch too soon. Certainly visitors should be able to see immediately that your site offers what they came for, but you can do that by telling them via text and/or graphics in a (shallow) header. Nor is it going to hurt – on a TGP for example – if at least a hint of the content is visible at the bottom of the first screen. But, never abandon the prime selling space on the page: confirmed freeloaders will not show you any appreciation and those who are looking to spend money may not bother looking down the page.
The moving finger writes…
(Note: never use obscure headlines) Some blogs and tours have in common their reliance on text and once again it is important to cater for the surfer who is far more likely to scan text than actually read it. Keep your text concise and on-topic, using short paragraphs with each covering a single salient point. Summarise that point in a few words if you can and highlight that text. Otherwise highlight key words. Less important is how you write, although it is best to aim for apparent objectivity rather than a hardcore sales pitch.
- Use bulleted lists whenever possible and be generous with your line spacing.
- Links with brief but informative descriptions are preferred to plain links or those with long descriptions.
- Surfers prefer short summaries of articles to jumping straight into the full article.
- Too much scrolling bugs surfers, so keep full articles on their own page(s) and don’t go overboard with the number of summaries displayed on one page. Blog owners take note!
Surfers’ dislike of scrolling may not seem entirely rational, but it is one of the main reasons that much of the content on many sites is rarely actually seen. In particular they hate horizontal scrolling and that creates a dilemma in the face of the wide variety of screen resolutions which need to be accomodated. Surfers using 800×600 may now be in a shrinking minority, but it is still a sizeable minority (15%-25%) while at the same time, a 760-pixel wide layout may keep them happy, but it will look puny at the higher resolutions.
Well the good news – at least if you are of an optimistic disposition – is that surfers prefer layouts which fill the screen. According to a number of surveys, full-screen layouts are considered more professional looking and easier to use. If you must go with a fixed layout, you should probably limit yourself to 900 pixels (to accomodate those who do not browse with a single window open) and at all costs, avoid layouts set to the left of the screen because those are actively disliked by many. And if you do impose horizontal scrolling on some, recognize most will not do it and keep important things, like navigation and promotions to the left of your page(s).