If you have a business website, or just are planning one, read this article. Print it out. Apply it to your site! No, really, print it out and compare your site to each and every point.
This year’s list of top problems clearly proves the need to get back to Web design basics. There’s much talk about new fancy “Web 2.0” features on the Internet industry’s mailing lists and websites, as well as at conferences. But users don’t care about technology and don’t especially want new features. They just want quality improvements in the basics:
- text they can read;
- content that answers their questions;
- navigation and search that help them find what they want;
- short and simple forms (streamlined registration, checkout, and other workflow); and
- no bugs, typos, or corrupted data; no linkrot; no outdated content.
Anytime you feel tempted to add a new feature or advanced technology to your site, first consider whether you would get a higher ROI by spending the resources on polishing the quality of what you already have. Most companies, e-commerce sites, government agencies, and non-profit organizations would contribute more to their website’s business goals with better headlines than with any new technology (aside from a better search engine, of course).
This article feels like sweet justification. My site designs have been called “old fashioned” because I focus them on usability and readability; never on flashy content. This is fixin’ to be required reading in my website class tonight!
[small biz] [rural] [web design]
- Rural tourism trends say small towns are still cool - March 27, 2023
- Move Your Money and Bank Local - March 22, 2023
- Using a building as a warehouse or storage in a small town? Put up a sign - March 13, 2023
- How to get customers in the door of small town and rural retail stores - February 19, 2023
- Check your small business website for outdated pandemic changes, missing info - January 31, 2023
- Rural Tourism Trend: electric vehicle chargers can drive visitors - January 15, 2023
- 2023 trends for rural and small town businesses - December 26, 2022
- Local reviews on Google Maps drive enduring value - December 17, 2022
- Extra agritourism revenue from camping, cabins and RVs with HipCamp - December 12, 2022
- Harvest Hosts attract vanlifers and RV tourists, Boondockers Welcome - December 2, 2022
Right on! As a somewhat frequent user of web sites, my most frequent complaints are readability, ease of use (intuitive web site), flow. It often seems that the designer never goes to another somewhat less endowed computer than the one on which he/she designed the site and tries to load, view, read, use the site developed. Slow loading is particularly irritating–even on DSL.
Thanks for your feedback! The main site, useit.com, has tons more usability info. My students were challenged (irritated) at first, but quickly became champions of the concepts.