There are things you don’t know about your site until you actually start using it.
Here are some lessons I’ve learned over the time, they help me to build easier to follow web sites.
Learn this and you will make your audience happier and willing to come back!
Reading onscreen is a pain, for everyone
This is the most basic principle of usability, just ask any expert.
Reading online is much harder than reading in print. Don’ use small typefaces or odd color schemes. Althow they might seem a good idea it will hurt your business a lot.
Keep your text short and easy to read!
Talk as if they are really stupid.
Well not really, but I got your attention.
Talk to them as if they where children, so no more than 4-5 lines in a paragraph and keep to what’s important.
This is the oldest rule of marketing. Be short, concise and direct.
You are not charged by pixel, so give space, lot’s of space
Wide line spacing makes text easier to read. You don’t want your readers confused and frustrated by reading the same line over and over again just because you made the line height so small that’s impossible to get to the next line!
They like dark text on a light background
We are trained to read dark text on a light background.
The dark background really jumps out at you, but a whole page of it will start to give you a headache.
Scrolling up-and-down is ok
Every mouse comes with a nice weel that helps them so scroll up and dow.
Unless you create a 10 000 lines page or other absurd thing there is no problem in scrolling.
It’s better to scroll than to pack everything so tight that no one want’s to read it
Lists are great
Again making the reading experience easy is a key aspect.
You can write a sentence all in a paragraph, but list can be a great help in readability
What do you think your audience will prefer?
The available colors are red, green, blue.
or
The available colors are :
-
Red;
-
Green;
-
Blue.
I’m sure they will prefer the latest form
They can’t remember your web address
Unless you’re ‘microsoft.com’ or ‘google.com’ no one ever remembers your web address.
Give people plenty of ways to subscribe, bookmark or otherwise remember you.
They don’t want to log in
Users are lazy, they want the content to be readily accessible.
Don’t force them to register or login to access your content.
Many users are concerned about giving you their contacts in the fear that more SPAM will arrive.
Do give them the option to save their information and create an account just don’t make it mandatory
Use your web site
This is arguably the best tip, after all this is your web site, if you don’t use it don’t expect your audience to do so!
Also by navigating in your web site you get the same experience your audience does. The same things bothering you will bother your audience so correct them now!