Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 2005. Summary: The oldies continue to be goodies -- or rather, baddies -- in the list of design stupidities that irked users the most in 2005. For this year's list of worst design mistakes, I decided to try something new: I asked readers of my newsletter to nominate the usability problems they found the most irritating.
I assumed that asking for reader input would highlight many issues that I hadn't noticed in my own user testing. This was not the case. Instead, all of the top thirty problems were covered in existing usability guidelines. Thus, when you read this year's top ten list, you'll probably say, "Yes, I've heard about this before. " There's value in reminding ourselves of past findings and raising their priority on the agenda of things to be fixed. 1. Bad fonts won the vote by a landslide, getting almost twice as many votes as the #2 mistake. For more info on resizable text and readability, see my 2002 column, "Let Users Control Font Size. " 2. 3. 4. Web content should also 5. 6. 7. 8. d05018.pdf (application/pdf Object) 113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability (Nielsen Norman Group)
While many of these guidelines can apply to web design in general, they are especially critical to follow when designing your homepage, because the stakes are so high. Your homepage is often your first — and possibly your last — chance to attract and retain each customer, rather like the front page of a newspaper. One of the biggest values of a newspaper's front page is the priority given to top news items. All homepages would benefit from being treated like a front page of a major newspaper, with editors who determine the high-priority content and ensure continuity and style consistency.
About These Guidelines Even small changes to homepages can have drastic effects. Consider the homepage for The New York Times. While we encourage you to use these guidelines as a checklist when designing your homepage, recognize that they are written in an abbreviated manner here. All said, these are just guidelines, not axioms. What's Not in These Guidelines Determining Homepage Content Accessibility URLs. Home Page Design Guidelines. Summary: A company's homepage is its face to the world and the starting point for most user visits.
Improving your homepage multiplies the entire website's business value, so following key guidelines for homepage usability is well worth the investment. Homepages are the most valuable real estate in the world. Each year, companies and individuals funnel millions of dollars through a space that's not even a square foot in size. For good reason. A homepage's impact on a company's bottom line is far greater than simple measures of e-commerce revenues: The homepage is your company's face to the world. The homepage is the most important page on most websites, and gets more page views than any other page. Following are ten things you can do to increase the usability of your homepage and thus enhance your website's business value. Make the Site's Purpose Clear: Explain Who You Are and What You Do 1. 2. Begin the TITLE tag with the company name, followed by a brief description of the site.
F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content.