113 Design Guidelines for Homepage Usability (Nielsen Norman Group): Article by Jakob Nielsen. Topics Author Recent Articles Popular Articles Subscribe to: 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.
Even small changes to homepages can have drastic effects. 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 In an effort to limit the focus specifically to homepage guidelines, there are several important issues we do not address.
Determining Homepage Content One of the most important design decisions for any homepage is determining what content merits homepage coverage. There are several usability methods that can identify and prioritize users' needs based on real data and observation. General Web Design Vertical Industry Segments We cannot provide a set of generic vertical guidelines. The Anatomy of an Effective Homepage. As a general rule, your homepage will be the first encounter a visitor will have with your business.
Great care, therefore, should be taken to design and structure your homepage so that readers will digest and act on your business message. Below we’ve identified certain qualities that compose an effective homepage. We recommend you spend a few minutes with this infographic to see if your homepage’s current state is effective. Special thanks to @keanrichmond and @onextrapixel. Click on the infographic below to view a larger image: View an enlarged version of this Infographic » Click here to download a .pdf version of this infographic. Simply copy and paste the code below into the html of your website to display the infographic presented above: <b>++ Click Image to Enlarge ++</b><br /><a href=" src=" alt="The Anatomy of an Effective Homepage"></a><br />Source: <a href=" Anatomy of an Effective Homepage Infographic</a>
Why the Future of Home Page Design is “Funnel Marketing” If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting! How's that for simple design? I want to ask you a question that is the driving point to this entire article: As a consumer, when you land on the home page of a website, what do you want to achieve? In other words, what’s your immediate goal? Really, think about this question for a second before continuing. Although many answers could be given to this question, I submit we all share one central desire: To find what we’re looking for IMMEDIATELY…without having to think too hard to get it. It used to be, and still is for many companies, that a website’s home page was loaded with text—stuffed with every keyword possible and enough messaging to practically write a book. Copyblogger: With 4 distinct funnels, Copyblogger is the ultimate example of simplicity combined with efficacy.
Convince and Convert: River Pools and Spas HubSpot SEOmoz Don’t go nuts on the amount of text. Your Turn: A couple of quick questions folks. How to Optimize Homepage Content Sliders to Increase Conversions. Last updated by Rich Page | 4 Comments Homepage content sliders are SO common now on websites, from e-commerce websites to media websites, but often they poorly engage and convert visitors.
These content sliders are usually found at the top of homepages and come in varying shapes, sizes and usages, and are usually used to highlight promotions, products and other content. Used well, they can better engage and convert visitors for your key conversion goals. But used badly, they can annoy visitors and cause them to leave, or risk them not seeing the most important information buried away in one of your later slides. Therefore, I have put together a post outlining best practices and test ideas for improving these to better engage and convert your visitors. Best practices to optimize homepage content sliders: Don’t make it rotate too fast. Here is an example of a well designed content slider that uses many of these best practices: Test ideas to optimize homepage content sliders: