Why audience navigation usually doesn’t work
Links cause most problems when they overlap and audience based links are particularly problematic.
Some years ago we worked with an educational website. They had links such as Teachers, Students, etc. All seemed very logical and reasonable. Until we started testing tasks.
We gave teachers tasks about putting together some sort of classroom exercise. We expected […]
Tips for writing great links
Start with the link, not the sentence. Often, all you need is a nice clear link. No summary text. The link should be the first thing you think about. You should only add surrounding text if absolutely necessary.
Write links like you would write a heading. Use 8 words or less. Write the link as if […]
The vital importance of the first click
If customers get the first click right they have twice as much of a chance of completing their task than if they get it wrong.
Nobody likes taking a wrong turn, particularly when it’s your first turn. If you have travelled 10 kilometers in the wrong direction, then it feels like you are travelling back 20 […]
Help people do things, don’t keep them on webpages.
Your objective should be to reduce the amount of time customers have to spend on your website.
A recent Jakob Nielsen article states that, “Users often leave Web pages in 10–20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer.”
“The average page visit lasts a little less than […]
Web navigation must face forwards, not backwards
People are on the Web to do something very specific. Great navigation relentlessly focuses on what is ahead.
“This website really annoys me,” an engineer told me recently. “I click several times just to get to the product page, then I click on Version 4, and then several clicks later I click on Configuration and what […]
The accidental website visitor
It’s very important that you don’t attract the wrong type of person to your website.
I dealt with a specialist government health website some years ago. Its objective was to help medical researchers find research grants. It had a customer satisfaction survey on its website and was getting very poor ratings.
The reason for this […]
Web management’s biggest issue: confusing menus and links
No other single factor causes greater customer frustration and dissatisfaction than confusing menus and links.
The root cause of most confusing menus and links is organizational language and thinking. Take, for example, the FAQ. Over the years, I’ve found that most customers don’t even know what an FAQ is. That certainly surprised me because I thought […]
Navigation is more important than search
Recently, we did some extensive task testing with a technical audience. 70 percent started the task by clicking on a link, 30 percent used search.
The larger the website, the more important it becomes to have quality search. However, the foundation of all great websites is, and always will be, quality navigation. In fact, there is […]
How to create clear web navigation menus
To create clear menus you need to understand your customers’ top tasks and use the words they would look for as they seek to complete these tasks.
Good web navigation is unsubtle. It is clear, precise, familiar, consistent, boring, unemotional. Good navigation is ugly and functional.
You’ve just designed a new plane. It’s sleek and ergonomic, […]
How to write a great web link
A link is a signpost, a promise. If a customer clicks on your link they are spending their time. Don’t make them waste it.
There are two types of links: navigation links (also called classification or menu links), and the links that are part of the body text of the page.
Links should embody the action. […]
