Continued from Design 1

Speed Read Friendly

The main body text in the site should allow for people to easily scan the content and still get the main points. Use headlines and subheads so that users can find exactly what they are looking for, in the lease amount of time. Users will scan first to find the topics they are looking for then they will take the time to read about that topic. Users are looking for something specific and they are not going to take the time to read a full page of body text to find what they are looking for. Using move headlines and subheads allows more users to get the most out of the site and will give your site better search visibility with both internal and external searches.

The “F" Pattern

The Nielsen Norman Group has conducted eye tracking studies (April 2006, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html) that show users look at Web pages in an “F" shaped pattern. This is where the user first looks to the top left then reads the line then comes straight back to the left to find the next part to read. Then progressively look less and less to the right as they scan down the page. If this test were preformed on a user reading a book it would be one big square block because when reading a book a user reads every line from start to finish. This isn’t so with Web pages. To make Website content scanable, a developer must have the most important content in the first line of each paragraph. If a user only reads the first line of each paragraph on the site they should be able to understand what the site is talking about, and get most of the information you wanted them to.

Once the content on the page
is easy to read, the visual aspects of the page can be addressed.

Neutral Backgrounds

Use unobtrusive backgrounds. A nice, soft, neutral background lets the content shine and be bright. Use neutral plain tones that almost become invisible to the eye as a part of the Website design. This will allow the content to have bright highlights where the important headlines are. Use the bright highlights sparingly though, so as not to overwhelm the reader with lots of bright hard to read text. This also applies to other graphics on the page; don’t pack graphics that are filled with tons of bright color all over the site. Use the color sparingly throughout the site to make key points better seen and key features of the site noticeable and accessible.

Use 3D Sparingly

Use 3D graphics sparingly as well. Technology allows designers to do amazing things with graphics and visual design, but designers should be careful not to overdue it. If the entire site is 3D and everything is popping in and out of vision nothing will be usable. At the same time 3D is a great way to get buttons noticed.