Speed is of the essence. Web users are an impatient lot. To them, ten seconds is like watching Gone With The Wind. Unless the user has high speed broadband, a site containing clever graphics and big photos will be s-l-o-w to download. Forget art for art’s sake, if there’s not a good reason for an image, leave it out. A web page should be no more than 60 KB. If necessary, start with small-ish photos to prevent delays in downloading and then make sure they can be enlarged.
Users don’t like having to click more than three times to get to what they want. Don’t make them click to ‘enter’ the site and don’t have too many stages in the buying process. The ‘buy’ button must be prominent on every page including the home page- and the phone number as well.
I was amazed to come across a South coast theatre website that didn’t have its box office number on any of the events pages. 30-40% of people may book by phone, so your number as well as the online buying facility must be prominent on every page. Your physical address must also be easy to find. This is important. It gives your website credibility and, another thing, it’s the law.
When it comes to the buying process, try to keep down the number of choices people have to make. Think of buying a theatre ticket- What date? What time? Stalls or Circle? Front, Middle or Back? What price? Any Discounts? Is it any wonder people give up and go to the cinema instead?
Your site must be easy to read. Not everyone has perfect vision (especially our ageing population) or the latest 20 inch widescreen monitor. Make sure type can be re-sized and that the blocks of type are ‘liquid’ so they will adjust on an old style 4:3 ratio screen, rather than the right-hand side being cut off.
Make sure the text contrasts with the background. Your older ( and usually richer) visitors will really appreciate this. Google, Yahoo, BBC all opt for a white background- and they should know. Highlight important information with strong simple colours. Black, white, red, blue- keep away from subtle shades.
Keep each page simple. Most people give the page a quick scan. One clear topic per page means the visitor doesn’t have to make choices about what to read. Even the Home Page should only give prominence to the four things that visitors are most likely to want to do. Use hypertext links (links within the page content) to enable people to find out more information, rather than trying to cram it all on one page.
Make your site interactive. If you want your visitors to become your customers and ultimately your advocates, give them the chance to comment on your products and your website or to ask questions, or even to talk to each other. A site which welcomes comments adds credibility to what it is marketing.
Whatever the website looks and acts like, the most important thing remains content. Remember the slogan- Great sizzle but where’s the sausage?
Don’t sell, inform… the sales will follow. People have already made a choice when they visit your website- they want information or they want to buy something or maybe they want to tell you something. Whatever the reason, they didn’t come to be sold to.
Websites win or lose on the quality of the words. Don’t think anyone can write the text. The great Jakob Nielsen’s research on Useit.com shows that changing ordinary text to web-orientated text can double website usability. Unless you’re one yourself, pay an expert to go over all your text and rewrite it to work on the web (e.g. use information-carrying words and actionable phrases, cut verbiage, make it search engine friendly). For example,‘The Hills Are Alive’ is a clever headline for a brochure but ‘The Sound Of Music’ is what works on a web page, because it carries the clear information needed both by search engines and by users scanning the screen. This is something I’m good at, by the way.
A few other points. Increasingly people are using their mobiles to visit websites. If yours doesn’t work, tell your designer to change the codes to conform with standards for handheld devices.
It’s tempting to convert print documents into PDFs for your website. Don’t, unless it’s something people are going to print themselves. People expect to be able to interact with a website, so a fixed document is frustrating.
It’s a good idea to get visitors to fill in a form, say to join your email list. Much as you need to know lots about them for marketing purposes, on this occasion keep the questions to a minimum or they won’t bother. You can ask them more later.
Finally Test. Observe even half a dozen people using your site- where they get stuck, where they go wrong. And employ the analysis tools that are often available from website software or servers or from Google Analytics to find out the pattern of visitors’ usage. Use this information to improve your website and put the customer in charge.
I’m hesitant after all of the above to suggest you look at my shop’s website. There are a number of ways it falls short of ideal. This is mainly because we used a template e-shop called Cubecart which is very but not entirely adaptable. Still, I’m on a continuous mission to refine and improve it, so any comments will be much appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment