We’re in our last article of a 3-part series on building websites according to user-centered design.  The three principles this series of articles is focusing on are:

1. Provide consistent navigation and layout
2. Focus on the users’ needs
3. Keep it short and sweet

Last month, we wrote about focusing on the users’ needs.  This month, we’ll be talking about our final principle: keeping it short and sweet.

It’s a well-known fact: people oftentimes don’t truly read web pages; they skim them.  In fact, it has been documented that most web pages are viewed for less than 10 seconds.  If people want to do in-depth reading, they’ll pick up a book, not go to a website.

What does this mean for you?  It means you need to design your web pages less like an essay, and more like a billboard. Here are some suggestions:

• Replace lengthy paragraphs with bullet points, block quotes, and sub-headlines.
• Break up your text content with images and icons.
• Highlight important words or sentences with bold text.

I would say that for website homepages, a good rule of thumb would be to avoid having more than two continuous paragraphs in a row.  Body pages, or the “inside pages,” can have more text than the homepage, because they oftentimes need to present more in-depth information — but you still shouldn’t be turning your website body pages into the next edition of War and Peace!

Additionally, intersperse your text with various calls to action: links or buttons with labels like “Learn More,” “Contact Us,” or “Sign Up Now.”  This helps guide your website users in their browsing process — ie. “What do I do with the information that I just read?”  (This is also a good sales practice as well.)

A lot of this ties in with the usability principle we wrote about last month: focusing on the user’s needs.  Like I said last month, people aren’t visiting your website to read a lengthy tome on the ins and outs of your company history.  They’re visiting because they want to know how you can help them. You need to succinctly show them what you do and why it should matter to them.

Here are some examples of websites that do a great job of “keeping it short and sweet.”

• www.FreshBooks.com
• www.BaseCampHQ.com
• www.Mozy.com
• and of course… www.Apple.com

We’ll be back next month with a new article on planning, building and maintaining your website.  In the meantime, if you have any questions about website design and development, feel free to contact us.

We’re in the middle of a 3-part series on building websites according to user-centered design.  The three principles this series of articles is focusing on are:

1. Provide consistent navigation and layout
2. Focus on the users’ needs
3. Keep it short and sweet

Last month, we wrote about providing consistent navigation and layout.  This month, we’ll be talking about the next principle: focusing on the users’ needs.

The first thing to do is put yourself in your site visitors’ shoes.  Outside of your mother, no one is going to proactively come visit your company’s website just because they think you’re a great person.  They will come, either through search engines, advertising or referrals, because they feel that you might be able to help them with something.

For instance, if you’re running a residential plumbing company, your website visitors will most likely be people who have a broken sink, busted pipe, or some other plumbing problem, and are looking for help to fix it — and probably  get it fixed as soon as possible!  So your website homepage should immediately show how you can help your target audience with their problem(s).  It should say something like:

“Hi, we’re ABC Plumbing Co.  We specialize in:

• Replacing sinks
• Fixing broken pipes
• and many other services.

Call us at 1-800-ABC-PLUMBING to schedule your plumbing repair today.”

The homepage should also include prominent link buttons to the website’s contact page or an email address (beware of spam, however), to make it easy for your site users to contact you.  There should also be links to more info on each of your company’s capabilities for those customers who would like more info — and of course some nice eye-catching images are always a great idea as well.

In any case, you DON’T want to put something like this on your homepage:

“Welcome to the official website of ABC Plumbing Company.  It all started when we were incorporated in 1986 in Centennial, Colorado by our founder John Doe.  John had a vision of providing quality plumbing services in the tri-county area, and through his tireless work, we grew to where we are today…(etc, etc, etc.)” This text would be appropriate for another internal website page, like an About Us page. That way your site visitors can read it if they choose.  But it should never be on the site’s homepage.  If you’re a homeowner whose basement is currently flooding from a cracked pipe and need help immediately, the last thing you care about is the rambling back-story of a particular company’s history.

I hope these pointers are helpful to you in planning, building and maintaining your company’s website.  Next month, we’ll write on our third website user-centered design principle: Keeping your site content short and sweet. In the meantime, if you have any questions about website design and development, please contact us and we will be glad to help.

Dakota Farms is a cooperative of family-owned bison and beef ranchers in several midwestern states in the US, along with several provinces in Canada. They hired us to build a consumer-facing website with information about the families on the ranches that produce their meat products, along with recipe and cooking information for bison and beef. We built the new website in the Drupal content management system. With this new site, Dakota Farms can create a page with a biography and photo collage for each of their participating ranch families, accessible to end users through a menu page listing all the participating ranch families.

A page for one of the participating ranch families

In addition, we also created a section of the website for listing various bison and beef recipes, along with cooking tips and instructions.  The recipe pages are entirely jQuery-powered, with an accordion menu in the left-side dynamically updating the recipe displayed on the page, all without needing a page refresh. Since these pages are also powered by the Drupal platform, Dakota Farms can add, edit and manage recipes, images and cooking tips as easily as they can manage the pages for their participating ranch families.

The Bison Info & Recipes page

We launched the website in April. You can find the newly-launched website here: www.YourRancher.com. Come check it out!

If you’re interested in our help in building a website for your own company or organization, contact us and we will be happy to talk with you.