Tag Archives: Navigation

Website Design

Web Site Design & Usability Checklist

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A well designed and compelling web site is important for a number of reasons such as enhancing or creating your identity, communicating your company’s message and establishing credibility. However, the design must meet the user’s needs in order for a site to achieve its goal.

The following checklist should provide a good starting point to make sure your site is well designed and usable.

Site Links & Navigation

  • Are hyperlinks stylized to be easily distinguished from the rest of the site text?
  • Do clickable items stylistically indicate that they are clickable, as well as, provide immediate (0.1 seconds) feedback?
  • Are text links clearly labeled to provide a clear indication of where they will take the visitor?
  • Is your primary navigation clearly and consistently labeled
  • Is your site navigation is easy to use for target audience (for example, larger buttons for an older audience)
  • Are you providing an alternate navigation method if your primary navigation is images, Flash, or DHTML?
  • Is your navigation is structured in an unordered list for accessibility
  • Are you providing secondary navigation aids, such as a site map, a skip navigation link, or breadcrumbs
  • Have you double checked all your links to insure there are now broken links?
  • Is your navigation easy to find and in a consistent location?

Web Site Design & Layout

  • Does the design of your site match your brand?
  • Is the web site’s design aesthetically appealing?
  • Is the design audience appropriate?
  • Are the colors used harmonious and logically related?
  • Does the site colors provide high enough in contrast to assist colorblind and visually impaired visitors?
  • Does the colors and graphics enhances or distracts from the site?
  • Are the fonts easily readable and degrade gracefully — standard text size should be readable, for visitors who don’t know how to adjust their browsers?
  • Are all the graphics are optimized to increase download speed?
  • Does the design of the site clearly indicate its purpose? The purpose must be clear within a few seconds without reading much or no text copy at all.
  • Is there a clear call to action on every page?

Web Site Content

  • Does you content create a clear Visual Hierarchy
  • Is the content on your site readable — type face, font size and color?
  • Is the web site copy succinctly written?
  • Is the copy written in a style that suits your website’s to ’speak’ to your target audience?
  • Is the contrast between body text and the background color sufficient to make it easy to readyreading easy on the eyes?
  • Is text broken into small, readable chunks seperated by headings, sub-headings with emphasis on features to assist in scanning the page?

This web design checklist is not the end all of lists. I’m sure there many more items that should be added. Moreover this list should be used a guide and not be seen as a list of must dos on every site.

Small Business, User Experience, Website Design

27 Simple Ways to Build Trust in Your Website

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Building trust online isn’t achieved by any one single action. Trust is achieved by doing many little things correctly throughout your website. When combined, these will give your visitors a sense of trust, honesty, and stability. The good news is it is easy to create and build trust in your online visitors.

Few business owners focus on building trust in the minds of their visitors. When done well, the trust you build becomes a sustainable competitive advantage.

  1. Make a good first impression with the design of your site. Having a site that looks professional says a whole lot about your company.
  2. Create simple and intuitive navigation. If visitors are not able to find what they are looking for easily, doubt will begin to form about your ability to provide what they want.
  3. Give your website a voice that is consistent with your company’s brand. Make sure to use language that is audience appropriate.
  4. Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. Provide an email form, telephone number, and address of the company.
  5. Answer any incoming emails promptly. Try and answer all emails within 24 hours no more than 48 hours after receiving.
  6. Continue to add content and update your site regularly. This shows that your website is active and a focal point for your business.
  7. Make a routine to check all your website links. Broken links will cause doubts to quickly form in your visitors’ minds.
  8. Spelling and the correct use grammar matter. Typos create the impression of sloppiness and carelessness.
  9. Do not make outrageous claims. Your visitors are too smart and will associate your website with those of the get-rich schemes.
  10. Do not fake your testimonials. Publish real testimonials and always use real names and link to websites where possible.
  11. Write your ‘About Us’ page to be personal and comprehensive. It is important to make visitors feel comfortable and show the real people behind the site.
  12. Add your picture and the pictures of any key people involved with your company. This reinforces the fact that there are real people behind the site.
  13. Carefully consider any advertising you display on your site. If your website is anything but a blog, I strongly discourage any use of advertising.
  14. If you are conducting any transactions over your website make sure you publish a security policy. Clearly indicate what measures you take to ensure that all transactions are secure.
  15. If you offer a guarantee make sure it highly visible. If you don’t offer a guarantee I’d suggest you offering one, making it a 100% money-back guarantee if possible.
  16. If you display pricing keep your prices up to date, and honor those prices. If unexpected costs do arise, a customer will be much more likely to accept them if a foundation of trust is built.
  17. Do not hide charges from your visitors. Make sure they know what to expect in terms of shipping and handling charges.
  18. Make your refund and returns policy visible. Do not bury it, use it as a competitive advantage.
  19. Use the trust of big brand names and companies to piggyback off of. For example if you use PayPal, put the PayPal logo on your site.
  20. Become a member of well-known industry associations for your subject, join up and put their logos on your site. Join your local area Chamber of Commerce and put their logo on your website.
  21. Allow visitors to add comments to your articles. Openness and the exchange of views build community and a sense of involvement.
  22. If you accept credit cards put images of the credit cards you accept on every page of the order process.
  23. Clearly indicate ‘secure website’ whenever you try to get any information from visitors, including newsletter sign-ups, forum input and payment.
  24. Offer a low-cost, entry-level option when selling a service such as a subscription. This could be a one-day, one week or a month trial offer.
  25. If you do offer a trial make it extremely easy to cancel the offer. Do not try and trap your visitors.
  26. Use a high level of security when processing credit cards. Make your visitors aware of all the steps you are taking.
  27. Only ask your visitors for information that you really need. For example, for an email newsletter sign-up, only ask for an email address, nothing else is necessary.

Building and gaining trust with your visitors mostly comes down to common sense and good business practices. You can never do too much to build trust. Continually learn what makes a site trustworthy or untrustworthy and implement the relevant changes to your site.