I did a great thing if you stayed on my website long enough to read the end of this sentence. You see, this site aims to be usable. And as you learn more about how to design a website, you'll see that helping your website visitors find your products and services more easily can lead to a dramatic positive impact on your business goals. How effective are websites in changing behavior, you say? "The average business metrics improvement after a usability redesign is now about 83%," according to a January 2008 survey. But choosing content for your website can be a challenge. Today, Big Picture Web brings you a crash course on usability and how to design a website.
How Effective are Websites in Changing Behavior?
Steve Krug is a well-known expert in the field of usability. He certainly knows how to design a website. His book, Don't Make Me Think, describes how people don't read websites like a book or magazine. They scan them for about fives seconds, more like a car speeding past a billboard. If they don't find what they want, they can quickly leave your website. If you learn how to design a website properly, you can grab your visitors' attention, clearly describe why they should do business with you and then give them the chance to so.
When choosing content for a website, you'll want to follow some standard website conventions. For example, always put your your company's logo in the upper-left corner of your website, and link it to your homepage for those that click on it. For an excellent visual on a these website conventions, check out UserEffect's Anatomy of a Usable Website. Their 25-point website usability checklist is also quite helpful. Choosing content for your website becomes a lot easier when you follow these simple guidelines.
If you're new to website usability or choosing content for websites, there is much to learn. You'll see how an effective website can change the behavior of your visitors, enabling them to learn more about you and hopefully do more commerce too. Let your customers do business with you. If you're learning how to design a website and have a question, visit the resources in this article or post a comment with your thoughts.