| Modern Website Structures
Posted: 18 May 2010 04:40 PM PDT Placing website elements If you want your visitors to feel right at home at your site, there are a few things that you shouldkeep in mind when creating or updating your site. Unless you are an artist (and want your site to bean usual piece of art), you probably want it to make it as easy as possible for the visitors of your site.But how do you do that? Approach #1: The scientific way There have been several studies (Shaikh & Lenz, 2006; eResult 2003-2009) about this. They asked anumber of people where they expect several elements of the website, like login link or searchfunction. The answers to these question have changed over time because the way the websitesusually look also changed. Some things are quite logic (like putting less important links to thebottom), but others are more like the “culture of the web”, like putting the navigation to the left.Perhaps it will be on the right in a few years? To put it in a nutshell, here’s a summary of where the users expect website elements to be:
The same data as a sample website:
The results cannot be surprising since they’re mostly the sum of all the websites that we visit everyday. Not all websites look like this, there are some exception, even popular ones. For examplesWikipedia placed the search function on the left instead of the upper right corner. Well, if you’reWikipedia, you can probably get away with this. Approach #2: Do it yourself If you don’t believe this or want to know about other website elements, there’s a simple way. Use anempty piece of paper (or a heavily blurred image of your website) and ask yourself and others whereyou would expect these elements. That’s actually quite simple and more or less the same how thestudies worked. Naming website elements Now you know where to put the elements. But how do you name them? Do you log in or sign in? Doyou have a shop or a store? Some of the typical website functions are not always named the same. Itested 30 popular sites of different sectors and counted the wordings that they used. Here are themost popular versions:
Naming your products If you want to sell something to your customers, you should make it easy for them to understand toproducts and product lines. This may seem obvious to you, but it’s not always obvious for others.Here’s a example. When shopping for my new computer, I visited Dell. Here’s what I saw: Did I want a Studio, an XPS or an Inspiron? I didn’t have the faintest idea and bought the computersomewhere else. Check your website to see if you make the same mistake. I did and after visiting DellI changed the product menu of my website (Link: http://www.easy2sync.com/) to include speakingheadlines with a short explanation. Summary Making it easier for your website visitors increases the chance that they visit you more often and / ormake a purchase. Often it’s enough to make a few simple changes to make a difference, like move anelement from the left to right or change a few words.A final word of advice: Let a friend visit your website while you sit next to him. Don’t help him, justwatch if and how he reads/downloads/purchases something and where he has problems. This can bea real eye-opener… – Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources |
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