A recent study conducted by StanfordUniversity’s Persuasive Technology Lab and Consumer Reports WebWatch invited more than 2,600 people to rate the credibility of Web sites. The results of the study showed that web users pay far more attention to visual aspects of a site, such as layout, typography and color schemes, than to its content. We find that people evaluate a web site’s visual design in less than 8 seconds. That’s a quick first impression!
So what makes a web site user-friendly? The answer to that is different for every type of web site and every web surfer. But we can offer some guidelines based on comments people in the study gave and based on what our clients have told us.
Web surfers like a site that loads quickly on their computer. Your web designer should optimize all images used on your site for the web. Also, design your site using the 216 web browser safe colors, which can be viewed by most PC and Mac users. Custom colors may not appear on most monitors, and skew your pretty design.
A user friendly web site is easy to navigate. Place the main menu on every page of the site, in the same place. Make buttons that need to be clicked visually obvious and easy to select with a mouse. Use alt text to describe images for handicapped web surfers who may not be able to view them.
Have your contact information clear on every page of your site: phone number, physical address and email address. I can think of at least three reasons for doing this. 1) It makes it easy for viewers to contact you. 2) Your site will be referenced properly if someone prints out a specific page from it. 3) It shows that there's a real company behind your site.
People return to sites that contain useful and timely information. Update your site's content and make note of the last time a page was updated if it is particularly timely, like a schedule of events. A calendar with information that expired 6 months ago will make surfers wonder what else is not accurate on your site. If you are providing data or statistics, make it easy to verify the accuracy of this information. You can provide citations, references or links to other sites. Even if people don't follow these links, your material looks more reliable.
Almost everyone knows someone who can put a web site together. But your web site represents your business to the whole world 24 hours a day. Your web site design should be appropriate for your purpose and a superb marketing piece. Ask your designer about their choices for layout, typography, images and more. If they have well thought out answers, then your best interests were in mind when your site was designed.
Beware of clutter on your site, or people will avoid it like a teenagers room with clothing thrown everywhere. Some “cluttering” items are: links to unrelated sites, overuse of animation and pop up ads. Some web designers forget about users and instead highlight their dazzling technological skills. Instead, keep it simple and keep ‘em coming back.
Let users see that real, trustworthy people stand behind your site. You can show employee photos and bios, a photo of your offices or list respected organizations that you are a member of, such as your Chamber of Commerce or the Better Business Bureau. Be sure to highlight the expertise in your organization. Do you have experts on your team? Give their credentials.
Avoid errors on your site, no matter how small they seem. Typos and broken links hurt a site's credibility more than most people imagine. If you don’t have the information a surfer is looking for, they’ll search for someone else who does. If you wait a day to proofread site changes before making them live, you’re more likely to find typographical errors.
Successful interaction between a web site and a user keep people coming back for more. Suddenly your web site operates the way people think it should, because your designer thought about what people want from your site before creating it.
Some information for this article was collected from: Fogg, B.J. (May 2002). "Stanford Guidelines for Web Credibility." A Research Summary from the Stanford Persuasive TechnologyLab.StanfordUniversity. www.webcredibility.org/guidelines.
