Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and
therefore decides everything, user-centric design has become a standard approach
for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a
feature, it might as well not exist.
We aren’t going to discuss the implementation details (e.g. where the search box
should be placed) as it has already been done in a number of articles; instead
we focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches for effective web
design — approaches which, used properly, can lead to more sophisticated design
decisions and simplify the process of perceiving presented information.
Please notice that
■you might be interested in the usability-related articles about 10 Usability
Nightmares and 30 Usability Issues we’ve published before,
■we’ll cover more principles of effective design in our following posts.
Therefore you might want to subscribe to our RSS-feed.
This article has been translated to Hebrew.
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Principles Of Effective Web Design
In order to use the principles properly we first need to understand how users
interact with web-sites, how they think and what are the basic patterns of
users’ behavior.
How do users think?
Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits
in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click
on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing
they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even
look at.
Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon
as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t
meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is
continued.
■Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with
high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with
advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why
not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic
over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
■Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed
points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
Users don’t read, they scan. Notice how “hot” areas abrupt in the middle of
sentences. This is typical for the scanning process.
■Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple
principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer
failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is
the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing
are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives. [JN / DWU]
■Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to
find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a
linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead
users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a
link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that
it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time.
Satisficing is more efficient. [video]
Both pictures show: sequential reading flow doesn’t work in the Web. Right
screenshot on the image at the bottom describes the scan path of a given page.
■Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of
reading the information a designer has provided. According to Steve Krug, the
basic reason for that is that users don’t care. “If we find something that
works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work,
as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re
designing billboard, then design great billboards.”
■Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and
rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t
want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back
with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good
practice to never open links in new browser windows.