As many of us I love browsing the web and in most cases I wouldn’t be randomly jumping from site to site but rather looking for a specific information. And as I generally won’t get satisfied with Google’s first three search results I continue digging in but not every site of the many I would visit will make me stay to explore it fully.
Those that will immediately end up in my bookmarks. But some are so confusing that I have to stop and think what my next move on the page will be. Sites like that usually make me to take a break or simply move on to another site. Just so that I do not lose reason.
And how do you recognize such site?
Look at your own reaction. Are you confused on a site? Not sure where you are and what to do next? Most of those sites share certain characteristics, access to the information on them is restricted by complicated design, confusing page structure or inconsequential design elements making the site almost unusable.
But if it was just me then there really wouldn’t be any problem. Unfortunately your visitors are the same. They have the reason to be on your site and they will wander off if they don’t find what they were looking for or have to make any more of an effort to access the information.
But how do you prevent that?
My best tip is design well but communicate first. Remember that your site’s users are not visiting it for your design, they are there for information or product and they want to get it as quick as possible.
Structure your site first. What I always recommend to our clients is to start with a site map. Simply create a list of all pages you would like to have on a site and draw how they will link to one another. Mark which ones will be in a main menu and which ones will be in any local navigation if you you plan to have any.
Then look at the content, what information is the most important and position it prominently on pages.
Think about conventions you will be creating, how links will look like, will there be any elements that will repeat from page to page (or between a group of pages)? If so, make sure they look and work the same on each page.
And always remember that if your visitors have to stop and think whether an element on a page is a link or not… you are in trouble.