Planning your site
3 main parts of a website
1. Content, content, content
Content is ultimate! Viewers come to your site for information. They may appreciate how good it looks but they are there to find out about you and/or your business.
2. Design
Having a consistent look throughout your business is key. Your brochures and website should have the same logo, slogan, colours and appropriate graphics.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Sit back and relax; StationV will take care of writing meta tags for descriptions and keywords, prepare and send sitemaps to Ask, Bing, Google, and Yahoo. Set up Google Analytics to follow and report on your site.
Design
What Users Want from A Website
Inspired from an article by Patrick Neeman at Usability Counts.
A clear message
The best approach is to have a name that is clear and concise, or to create your own brand (Amazon, Google) so you’re name can show up in a dictionary.
Find a website URL that fits our business model
Make it clear on the home page what the website is about. Your users have no question about your service or site goals.
- Is it an ecommerce site?
- Do you provide services?
- Are you trying to get people to sign up for something, so you can contact them?
Users want context to see if they fit
- Is this a service I need?
- Do I see enough value in it (time, money) to use it?
Users want consistency
A consistently bad interface is better than an inconsistently good interface, because at least users know what to expect.
Users will leave the site if the navigation moves around and appears in different places on the page, or get frustrated because they can’t find something.
Users don’t want the shiny (unless it’s in context)
YouTube and some of the music sites are great examples — but they are also barriers for users. They might not have the right plug in installed. They might be on a slow connection. They might have a computer that belongs in a museum. More often than not, there’s a reason not to use heavy Javascript, Flash and SilverLight than to use it. The shiny is cool, but only when it makes sense.
Users want to be guided (without being guided)
One of the general rules about website usability tests is that you almost never listen to what users say, it’s always what they do.
Help text generally doesn’t work. Big long Flash introductions don’t work. Dancing flash people don’t work.
What does work are sites that are intuitive enough and forward thinking enough to provide an easy to follow path to the information they are seeking. The elements of user experience should be defined enough so the site acts the way the user thinks it should act.
Content
Components
Content is the most important aspect of a website. It always consits of written copy with supporting graphics and may include contact/registration/membership forms, photo galleries, e-commerce, graphs, downloadable documents, etc.
Copy
Writing copy for the web is quite different than writing for print. Viewers tend to come to your site looking for specific information and they want it quickly... there is no time to build up to your point as there is when writing regular prose. In fact, it is best to state the intention of each page clearly with:
- a heading followed by a sub heading
- sparingly embold words not phrases
- use point form as much as possible.
There is more help about this subject on the "More About Writing" page.
Graphics
Pictures say a thousand words. Visuals are essential in making your site look good. If you have a logo, a brochure, a slogan, company colours, etc., they are very valuable elements in desinging the look and feel of the site.
Graphics need not be large or of high resolution for use on the web. In fact, too many or large photos can slow down the load time of your page.
It is important that you own the graphics. All images should be either your own or puchased from stock photo companies such as iStockphoto.com.