All glitz and fizz The past was about 'bells and whistles'.
Websites were designed to showcase the technology behind the web
rather than to be an effective communications medium. Flash was
used to "excite" and "engage" - its effect however was often the
opposite. And web navigation was sometimes an experiment in
obscurity making it almost impossible for the visitor to find
their way around. Entertainment was the mantra rather than
communication effectiveness. We want it now There are often only
a handful of reasons or actions for which the majority of
visitors will be at your site. They want to complete the task in
hand e.g find a price, book a ticket or get directions with
minimum fuss.
Unless a site is quick and easy to use it will be a barrier
rather than a gateway. Usability guru, Jakob Nielsen, suggests
users spend on average less than 2 minutes on a website. The key
to engaging visitors' must therefore be simplicity over
complexity; the need is less not more - less clutter, less blurb
and fewer barriers.
Why clutter-free design "When we're creating sites, we act as
though people are going to pore over each page, reading our
finely crafted text, figuring out how we've organized things,
and weighing their options before deciding which link to click...
...We're thinking 'great literature' (or at least 'product
brochure'), while the user's reality is much closer to
"billboard going by at 60 miles an hour." --Steve Krug, Don't
Make Me Think
The Internet is clearly a different form of communication to
more established media such as printed literature. However, it
is only in recent years that its intrinsic differences have
begun to make an impact on web design. I cannot count the number
of times I've heard of clients asking their web designer to 'put
our brochure online' - a brief that reflects a common lack of
appreciation of the web as a powerful but very different medium.
Ensuring that the design and layout of our web pages suit the
medium they are used in will help to ensure a positive user
experience.
Let's look at a few practical ways of doing more with less to
make things simpler for our visitors:
1) Make pages easy to scan It's a well recognised fact now
amongst web professionals that people rarely read pages online -
they scan, or "speed read". Therefore, if the information they
need is not readily available they will move on - and quickly.
Sensible use of headings, subheadings and bullet-points help
bring a logical hierarchy to the page and allow visitors eyes to
scan through the page efficiently to find the information they
needallows visitors eyes to scan through efficiently to find the
information they need.
2) Give me some [white] space Subtle and thoughtful use of space
in page design helps guide a visitor's eyes to important
information. It also helps to bring logical definition to
different areas of a page, which lightens the load on our brains
and allows us to focus on the task in hand.
3) Copy? Reduce it Visitors often won't have the time or
inclination to read pages and pages of text in the hope of
finding what they're after. We need to prune our web copy to
suit the medium - get rid of paragraphs and sentences that don't
add value.
4) Simplify site structure Make sure that the sections of the
site are divided up logically and that the navigation is clear
and logical. Reduce the number of steps it takes to complete
tasks, especially when they lead to revenue generation - such as
the checkout process on an e-commerce site.
5) Follow standards When it comes to labelling navigation links,
it's a good idea to follow standards that have evolved with web
development. For example, with contact details rather than
giving it a navigation label, 'call for more information/our
offices', the standard would be 'contacts' or 'contact us'.
In closing... Some might suggest that these principles constrain
creativity. However, I believe that the 'less is more'
philosophy heightens the need for a more creative approach to
communicating ideas and messages - communicating an idea in 10
words is a lot harder than using 100 words.
About the author:
Jeremy Jarvis is a designer at Reflex Digital, offering
web design services in Leeds,
West Yorkshire and the UK.
