AdWords just announced that they will soon factor in landing page load times into the quality score that helps determine your ad’s position. The reasons for this are, in effect, to reward site owners who provide responsive sites and punish those that make users wait. We have no idea yet how much of an impact […]
I just had the pleasure of attending a presentation by usability luminary Steve Krug in which he identified what he thinks are the two key rules of web design for usability: Show where you are within the site Provide good, prominent titles You were probably expecting something more earth shattering? So was I, but as […]
Too often I come across websites that have what appears to the designer/owner to be a slick, beautiful, or otherwise superior design that presents challenges to users. All too often usability comes a distant 2nd or 3rd to other design considerations. Website usability is a critical determinant of how effectively you convert visitors in customers. […]
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is typically unfriendly to search engines, and thus may thwart SEO efforts. AJAX is a set of techniques that allow websites to act more like client-side applications by fetching data and processing it locally based upon user actions. For instance, a web-based spreadsheet may allow the user to sort data […]
Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox recently included a post about the usability benefits of breadcrumbs. We have long counseled clients to use them when their site design and organization allow for the same reasons that Jakob advocates their use. We add one more reason: SEO. One of the important aspects of site optimization is creating abundant, keyword-rich […]
What is the purpose of your website’s home page? Is it to brand, sell a product, talk about the company, direct people to the right information, or entertain visitors? Should it be colorful or stark? Simple or busy? Focused or comprehensive? All of the other questions and concerns are acadmic if website visitors leave, which […]
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen recently summarized common website mistakes that result in lost business, both online and offline. These include: Aggressive home page promotions that annoy users and diminish trust. Lack of consistent design and navigation throughout the site. Poor information presentation/navigation and lack of good search. Over-emphasis on being new and different at the […]
The following Firefox extensions are incredibly useful for all kinds of web-related work: ColorZilla – Investigate and copy colors, check coordinates, and zoom. Googlebar – Search various Google properties, within a domain, examine the cache, and more. Greasemonkey – Customize other people’s websites with ready-made or custom plugins. SessionSaver – Save tab sets and histories […]
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