More web design self help
The folks at Smashing Magazine have published a terrific article about web design, called 10 Principles for Effective Web Design. You should read it - some of the information is new and some has made an appearance here in my blog.
Here are a few of my favorite tips -and items that we try to incorporate into our designs!
1. Manage to focus users’ attention:
The human eye is a highly non-linear device, and web-users can instantly recognize edges, patterns and motions. This is why video-based advertisements are extremely annoying and distracting, but from the marketing perspective they perfectly do the job of capturing users’ attention.
2. Make use of effective writing
Talk business. Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names. For instance, if you describe a service and want users to create an account, “sign up” is better than “start now!” which is again better than “explore our services”.
And there’s a lot more - so you really should read the entire article. Increasingly, I’m asking customers to spend as much time as possible developing their content - all of the studies about eye tracking, site navigation and more - all point out that your content will trump your visual design and layout!
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