What makes a good website? This question seems to bother everybody who is either planning or running his business online. A good site design eases prospective customers to find what they want and therefore convinces them to return to the business at the same time. Forrester, an organization who has regularly performed researches for measuring website performance, listed out some best practices adopted by American prestigious organizations. Followings are some tips recommended based on the research results [1]:
Put attention on the content of your website
A good website provides both ‘valuable content’ and ‘function’ to its customers. This can be done by determining what contents or functions that customers may seek for on a particular page. For example, TJ Maxx enables it users to zoom on the photograph of its products (e.g. towels) so that customers can preview the fabric material.
Provide user friendly navigation / links
To provide prospective customers with user friendly navigation, some website use combination of two navigation techniques: keyword-based search engine and menu navigation. Please ensure that all related items / products are categorized logically within a group. Kmart can be a good example on this case.To provide customers with user friendly links, please ensure that you eliminate meaningless hyperlinks such as ‘click here’ or ‘learn more’ from your website.
Ease your customers with indexes and consistent user interfaces
Customers tend to scan on a site’s content before bother to read it [2]. To ease customers, some websites use bullet points or highlighted indexes to make them easier to perform eye-scanning. Nissan shows a good example in this case.Another way to enhance your website appearance is by using consistent user interface such as button, menus, etc. For example, you can view on NewYork Times’ website
Win your customers’ trust
You can win your customer’s trust by providing clear ‘location cues’ and helpful information on such as where can a customer get further assistance in case he need one. A prospective customer may arrive at certain page / section of your site by clicking on a link from another website [2]. Clear location cues enable customers to know where exactly he is on your website. For example, Chevrolet uses spanning trees to its customer feel lost while exploring the site. Helpful information such as organization’s staff contact details may also be included to win your customers’ trust.
Other related topics:
The 2008 Australian Website Competition
What is CRM? How can it affect on e-business?
Optimizing your e-business with SEO
How does search engine work?
[1] Manning, H. and Kerry Bodine. (2005). Best and Worst of Site Design, 2005. Forrester
[2] Hulbert N (2008, April). Write Right For Your Website. Nett. p.62
Filed under: Web design | Tagged: E-Business, good websites, user friendly web, Web design, web design recommendation, web design tips
Hai..nice blog anyway..
I want to ask..Is there any standard to make a design for website? or just design for better look?
Thanx..
Hmmm, somewhere out there some people still use low-speed internet connection such as 56k dial-up.
It guess we need to optimize our site for performance if (based on research results — also) some of our target still on low-speed connection.
Yup.. Nice blog.
In my opinion it’s not enough just design for better look. Users often search for functionality, more than just a mere beautiful look.
Designing a website is an art; there is no strict standard that you need to follow in order to produce a good one. However, it is highly recommended that you consider all your prospective audiences before you jump into your progamming codes. What do they expect to see on your website? IS good appearance enough to make them stay? Or, is are there any other functions / aspects that they may expect from your website?
looking like an answer or a solution to this.