Photo by tensafefrogs
I always live by the motto that substance beats fancy pants design hands down. Mostly because fancy pants design is usually the key problem that hampers people actually using websites that could otherwise be a lot more friendly.
Organisation
Content makes a website interesting – but it’s only good when users can find it. Can your customers find your content easily when they land on your page?
Make your navigation menus as simple as possible. For godsake do not use flash for navigation. It’s bad, bad, bad for a number of reasons.
So how do you keep your visitors sane?
Put things in obvious positions!
For example, the most accepted menu positions are under the header in a horizontal line, to the right of the header in any format, or vertically down the left. Customers will be looking for it in those locations – making them look too hard will piss them off.
What do pissed off customers do? Leave and never come back.
Appropriate Imagery
Flashy or blinking graphics, rotating “new” buttons, stars, and anything else that could fall into the tacky category will turn people away.
If you’re serious about your business website representing your business, it pays to use real photographs and professionally designed graphics and logos.
These items, although they cost something sometimes, are well worth the money for building legitimacy, trust, and professionalism.
Spelling and Grammar
It’s surprising how many professional websites (blogs not included) include extremely poor grammar and spelling.
A simple proofread will eliminate 99% of these and gain you back the 99% of credibility you lost.
If you’re having trouble getting this right, try reading your content aloud. Yes, actually out loud. I find it gives my brain a new way to absorb the information and for some reason it feels like it’s easier to find mistakes I would have otherwise skipped over.
Plus, my cat likes it.
Whitespace
The final point – even though I could probably talk about this for hours - is the use of whitespace.
Whitespace is all about leaving breathing room between elements and text on your page. It doesn’t have to be white, that’s just the term used to describe it.
Whitespace provides clarity. It makes your layout look clean, organised and easy to use. Which is great for business sites because you don’t want your layout to be confusing in any way for your customers.
Conclusion
What’s that? You want a Rule Of Thumb?
“When In Doubt, Leave It Out.” – a true quote by some very sage designer I can’t remember.
I know of several very slick website that are really light on the content side. Light enough that I don’t read them anymore… despite how popular they are given the comments.
There’s only so much preaching to the choir I can handle, and slick design doesn’t overcome that.
Too right. Being a good resource can really be make or break for websites – especially business sites. It’s a great differentiator as well where all the competition is just posting up 3 page sites with contact information.
If you can build a following on your website, you’ll be doing your business massive favours.