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Major Communications
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Major Communications
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By Jennifer Johnson
How "user-friendly" is your site? Lots of hits but few sales could indicate a problem in this area.
Sometimes it's difficult for site owners to assess this quality in regard to their own site. It requires being objective and it's hard to be unbiased when you're talking about your "baby," right?
Well, it's time to learn, kid. Being user-UNfriendly has brought about the untimely demise of many a site and none of us want that horrible fate to befall our sites, do we?
The big question, then, is this: what makes a site user-friendly and how can we, as web designers, cultivate this quality in our sites?
The first part of that question is easy; a site is user-friendly if it is easy for visitors to obtain the desired result. The "result" could be anything -- the procedure for differentiating a weasel from a stoat, finding the Latin word for "hiccup," purchasing a diamond-studded cat collar for "Fluff-A-Poo," gleaning any insight as to why Jerry Springer's guests can be incited to a hair-pulling, chair-slinging rage at the drop of a hat... You get the picture.
In short, if it's easy for a visitor to get what they came for from any given site, that site is user-friendly.
The second part of the question, cultivating this quality in our sites, is not always so simple. It requires being able to see your site through your visitors' eyes and identifying the obstacles that prevent visitors from becoming customers.
I'd like to share a few things I believe are common obstacles encountered on many business sites that prevent them from being user-friendly. Hopefully this will give you a few ideas to help improve your own site.
OBSTACLE #1
Making the Visitor Jump Through too Many Hoops
How many times have we heard that Web surfers are impatient? Yet we still provoke them at times, don't we? How so? A major way to incur the wrath of one segment of the online population is to utilize a "splash" page.
What I'm referring to is a page that has absolutely no purpose whatsoever other than to display a (most of the time) cheesy, bloated graphic and that annoying sentence, "Click Here to Enter!!!!" I can feel my blood pressure spiking just thinking about it.
Another prime example is making visitors click through 23 pages of inane material to get to the punchline. While you don't want one long, endlessly scrolling page, you also don't want a series of pages with 7 words each.
If you *really* want to earn a reputation as a pain in the you-know-what, make your visitors fill out a form with loads of personal info before they can obtain even basic information about your product or service.
Your visitors are actually there, at your site; don't do anything that will make them mouse away at a high rate of speed. If you make them jump through too many hoops, you'll do just that.
Overcoming this Obstacle:
- Strike a balance between obtaining information you need and
badgering your visitors right out the door.
- Avoid an overly long click trail. Your goal should be to
introduce the visitors to your product/service and entice them
to make a purchase, not to give their mouse finger a high
-impact workout.
- Most people don't like to divulge large amounts of personal
information. Solicit only information you need and make it
clear how you'll use that info.
OBSTACLE #2
Poor, or Non-Existent, Site Navigation
If your visitors can't find their way around your site, they can't get what they came for. Sites that are user-friendly are easy to navigate.
One of problems frequently seen in this area are sites in which the LINK, VLINK, background, and text are barely distinguishable from one another. Although I have visited a few sites where the background color and the text or link color had so much contrast it was almost painful to look at (avoiding using bright blue on bright red or vice versa).
Overcoming this Obstacle:
- Utilize text, background, and link colors that
are easily identifiable.
- Use consistent layout and navigational items
throughout the site.
- Provide text links in addition to any graphic links used.
OBSTACLE #3
Slow Download Times
I'd be willing to bet that this is the number one complaint Internet users have with web sites. Not everyone has the newest, superfast modem; make your pages as light as possible.
This is a hard one for me, personally, to overcome. I love graphics! I love making them; I become attached to them. When I do become particularly enamored of a certain graphic I've created, I've been known to try and change my page, if necessary, just to be able to use it.
If it won't fit into the scheme of my page, well, I'll just make my page fit it. This is bad, reeeeeeally bad. I usually come to my senses and after an acceptable period of grieving, I move on with my page - minus the beloved graphic. Don't fall into this trap yourself!
You lose x amount of visitors the longer it takes your page to download. Don't think you'll avoid this by saying something along the lines of, "Be patient while this page downloads; you'll be glad you did, it's worth it." I hate to be the one to break it to you, kid, but it's NOT.
*Very* few sites that I've visited with excessive download times were worth the wait -- saying less than 1% would be generous. We know how long it took us to create a particularly cool graphic and what hard work it was, but no one else knows and, more importantly, they probably don't give a rat's tail one way or the other.
I would also suggest cutting down dramatically on the Java applets. They are usually time-consuming and in my experience, don't serve much of a purpose a good deal of the time anyway. Why do I want to wait all those extra seconds just to get to see an applet that displays the date and time? Scrolling marquees that announce "Welcome to my site!" over and over are especially annoying as well.
Overcoming this Obstacle:
- If it doesn't serve a purpose, ditch it. You want a site that
looks good and loads fast. You need to reach a happy compromise
between aesthetics and speed.
- Optimize all your images. Try NetMechanic's GifBot -- it's free
at: http://www.netmechanic.com
Obstacle 4
Obscure Product/Pricing Information
I'm clueless as to why exactly this occurs, but I've run into it several times: business sites that don't display their products or give you little, or no, information on the products and their cost.
In order to sell something, people have to know what it is you're selling. A picture alone won't do, either. Describe the product or service. Tell me all the great things about it and why I should buy it from you and not the guy down the street.
For people to purchase a given item, they (usually:-) want to know what it costs. It won't work to be evasive here. If you think by making them run the gauntlet of your exhausting online order form your customers are going to be so weary they won't care what the price is, you're wrong.
Overcoming this Obstacle:
Display your product, description, and price prominently. I don't really see any harm in telling the prospect a little bit about your product before hitting them with the pricetag; that's only common sense in some situations; but don't put them through the wringer for an eternity before you let them in on the cost.
It's sometimes difficult to become detached enough to view your site as your visitors do; after all, you've invested a lot of time, money, and emotion into creating it. It's imperative you learn to do this, however, you must if you want your business to thrive. By seeing your site as the rest of the world does, you can more easily identify (and correct) any obstacles that may be preventing potential customers from making a purchase.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Jennifer Johnson is the Webmaster of ASPiRE Internet Marketing at http://www.PromotingYourSite.com. Articles, tips, tools, tutorials, and other resources to help you effectively design and promote your site.
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