Observations from a dimly lit office.
The 3-Step Guide to Rescuing Websites from Insignificance: Step 2.
This is Step 2, so I’ll assume you’ve knocked off Step 1 and written website copy that’s simple, easy to scan and loaded with facts. What’s next? Designing your website to deliver that content in a way that helps users sift through it. That means it’s time to …
2. Lay out your website like you’re organizing for a busload of curious, self-directed tourists.
Important stuff goes where they’ll look first. For everything else, good signage abounds.
Users scan horizontally across the top, horizontally across the middle and down the left side. The F-pattern. So park the things you want them to see on the F.
Users also spend 69% of their time on the left half of the screen, and 30% on the right half. The other 1% is for that stuff you put so far to the right they have to scroll over to find it. What’s this mean? It means a conventional layout is still the best way to deliver content. Navigation on the left, vertically. Then all the really important stuff goes from there to about halfway across the page. And all the secondary content sits on the right. But not so far to the right that scrolling is required.
News websites typically have this down pat (our local ABC affiliate is a good example). On the left, you find the categories — like traffic, local news, national news, sports, entertainment, etc. The left-to-middle column is for the headline news. And then over on the right, you’ll see special features and ads.
Conventional? Yes, Dull? Maybe. But since it works, deviating from the conventional is a risky move.
What to shoot for: Design each page to live entirely “above the page fold,” where no downward scrolling is required. Why? Because users spend 80% of their time there. 80%!
Design fact: 78% of users see text first. 22% see graphics.
Nag: Satisfy users first. Your website is for them, not you.
Next time, Step 3: Never finish.
Thanks for the helpful information!