Important Redesign Considerations
Sometimes it’s essential to redesign your web site. After two years of a red-black color scheme, I was getting a little bored, and so, if for no other reason, I felt the need to redo the look. What you’re looking at is a new design that, I hope, will accomplish the new objectives I have for this business.
Step one was to find a color scheme that I liked. Blues and grays are great for anything that needs a professional look and feel. I didn’t want it to be too mundane in that case, so I brought in a darker blue, no gray, and a somewhat florescent green to the palette. I wanted a new logo, so I created a metallic insignia, something like what you might see on a car, but with some color brightness to it.
The last step was to minimize content. I’ve become a convert of minimal content. I have noticed that my very favorite web sites have little content to sift through. Take, for example apple.com. These guys have one of the best home pages on the net, and it is incredibly minimal in its copy. However, run a search on Google for the site (site:apple.com) and you’ll find thousands of indexed web pages. So, like I believe we ought to do in government and in business, I cut the fat and trimmed it down to a couple paragraphs. I placed the contact form right there on the home page, and the portfolio as well. It’s all there in one quick glance. Then, using Ajax, I made the form and the portfolio accessible without being taken to another page.
All in all, I think it works. Hope some of these steps I took on this site might be useful for whatever your project might be.
Web 2.0 Compliant?
I just discovered a Web 2.0 Compliance web site. Wow! We’re officially web 2.0 compliant!
Web 2.0 compliant? What a joke! (Maybe later I’ll preach on this one…)
The 3 Click Rule: Not Applicable?
Usability folks have been preaching the 3-click rule for years: if a user can’t get to a page within 3 clicks, then the navigation needs to be tweaked. Overall, I think this rule has proven to be effective. Sites like Apple.com and Google.com operate by this guideline and have wonderfully navigable user interfaces.
However, a more important element should be planned and executed before implementing the 3-click rule. Jared M. Spool, Christine Perfetti, and David Brittan published a report that in some ways debunks the 3-click concept. In Designing for the Scent of Information, they posit that what users expect is that every click they make gets them closer to the information they seek. As long as they have indicators that they are heading in the right direction, they won’t likely abandon the site.
So rather than applying a strict 3-click rule, site designers would do well to develop a significant indicator of where the user came from, where he or she is at, and where he or she is headed. This doesn’t necessarily mean creating fancy breadcrumbs, although such navigation trails are certainly userful. The overall design of the site, and of each page, ought to be clear enough that the user doesn’t have to squint or zoom in to decipher what’s going on and where elements are located.
Let me introduce an analogy that has helped me focus on the more important design points we’re talking about here. Take a look at Apple’s iPhone internet video. You’ll see a device that quite strikingly produces a clear, useful view of web pages. Now, on the iPhone, when the page first loads, only certain elements are visible without zooming in.
Design your site so that the user gets, in the screen size of an iPhone, (on the first instance) indicators of their navigation. A breadcrumb probably won’t work, now, will it? But your H1’s and H2’s will, as well as images and graphic elements.
