What to avoid to make your website design effective?By Veselin Andreev Written in April 2003 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The effective design is this one, which is maximum simplified, conformable to your users because they are your main purpose. This one, simply and clearly announcing what is your website about. This one, quickly offering users exactly what they are expecting to see on your pages without being troubled with insignificant information. The big mistake made by lots of web designers is to project their activities from their own point of view, without thinking about user.
Factors, damaging website design effectiveness
• Additional time needed for website downloading • Badly written content • Complex design, abundant in elements • Difficult navigation, incomprehensible for user • No validated program language
Additional time needed for website downloading
Your pages downloading time is extremely important. Your users will shut your website down very quickly if you make them wait more because of your slowly downloading pages. The other sites are on a mouse click away from them.
• Not important if you are talking about graphics, multimedia, scripts, applets - be cautious about their location on your site. Don't put them without judging their position, just because you or your designer had an idea about it. Design them small-sized, too.
Badly written content
The text that is ready for print has nothing to do with text for Web. According to Jacob Nielsen, Web usability guru, users have more difficulties in reading information on computers rather than on printed editions. They rather scan it than read it profoundly. Huge text blocks are unreadable and couldn't allow them to do it. Means to make text more readable and effective could be effectuated by using:
• separate paragraphs • titles • subtitles • indentations • bullets • bolds • hyperlinks • different fonts and sizes
Complex design, abundant in elements
• Don't complicate users work by complex and abundant design making website not to be clear in terms of its downloading and its appearance on their screens.
• Avoid frames. They could seriously damage your website usability.
• Having a site, made on FLASH you can't explain fast and clear to users what his content is about, what it would be useful with, what they could win, using your services, because only its downloading will take several minutes. If you insist however on including FLASH elements, much better variant is to insert them in a detached small file, with definite size, but inserting it, you have to possess some clear purpose. It refers much more to your home page, which is your website main portal.