If you have a business website, or just are planning one, read this article. Print it out. Apply it to your site! No, really, print it out and compare your site to each and every point.
This year’s list of top problems clearly proves the need to get back to Web design basics. There’s much talk about new fancy “Web 2.0” features on the Internet industry’s mailing lists and websites, as well as at conferences. But users don’t care about technology and don’t especially want new features. They just want quality improvements in the basics:
- text they can read;
- content that answers their questions;
- navigation and search that help them find what they want;
- short and simple forms (streamlined registration, checkout, and other workflow); and
- no bugs, typos, or corrupted data; no linkrot; no outdated content.
Anytime you feel tempted to add a new feature or advanced technology to your site, first consider whether you would get a higher ROI by spending the resources on polishing the quality of what you already have. Most companies, e-commerce sites, government agencies, and non-profit organizations would contribute more to their website’s business goals with better headlines than with any new technology (aside from a better search engine, of course).
This article feels like sweet justification. My site designs have been called “old fashioned” because I focus them on usability and readability; never on flashy content. This is fixin’ to be required reading in my website class tonight!
[small biz] [rural] [web design]
- 3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community - June 6, 2022
- How to recruit new residents, remote workers, or remote entrepreneurs - June 2, 2022
- How cooperatives improve small town economies - May 8, 2022
- Metaverse business idea: virtual world tour guide - April 15, 2022
- Make extra money from extra workspace: co-working and 3rd workplaces in small towns - March 28, 2022
- Trade show booth design trend: hand drawn visuals - March 21, 2022
- New business sign design? Don’t use cursive script - February 14, 2022
- Way more people prefer rural than urban, new Pew Research study finds - February 1, 2022
- Top 5 Rural and small town trends 2022 - January 3, 2022
- How to start a real small small business - December 17, 2021
Right on! As a somewhat frequent user of web sites, my most frequent complaints are readability, ease of use (intuitive web site), flow. It often seems that the designer never goes to another somewhat less endowed computer than the one on which he/she designed the site and tries to load, view, read, use the site developed. Slow loading is particularly irritating–even on DSL.
Thanks for your feedback! The main site, useit.com, has tons more usability info. My students were challenged (irritated) at first, but quickly became champions of the concepts.