- Messages
- 3,295
- Reaction score
- 227
- Points
- 63
It pretty much boils down to a few simple things. They can be summarized as "don't annoy me", "don't jerk me around" and "don't make me think", but to put it in more concrete terms:
1. Make sure your page does what it says on the tin. In other words, no search engine shenanigans like keyword cramming or pushing your content to the bottom of the page with a bunch of crap the user didn't come for (like ads).¹ If the user is coming from a search and can't immediately find a way to get to what it is they were searching for, they're gone already. If it's obvious that what they were actually searching for is nowhere to be found, not only are they gone, but if they're Chrome users, they'll probably ad your site to their personal blocklist. If it's an informational page, have the information there (no click-through nonsense UNLESS you have a no-exceptions paywall, which probably isn't a good idea in most cases). If they've come to buy something and they CAN buy it on your site, they had better be a price visible and a way to buy it waiting for them.
2. Bring the page and file sizes down, request numbers down, and the speed up. Performance counts. If I don't see something usable on the screen within the first couple of seconds, I'm not going to hang around to see how awesome your design is or what new coolness you're doing with jQuery, HTML5 and CSS3. As they say, time is money, and if you take my time you're not getting my money. Those forty-seven @font-face downloads you're using from Typekit or Adobe Edge sure look pretty, but each of them takes time to check your usage meter on the service, involves a multi-kilobyte download for me, and absolutely nothing is visible on the page until everything's finished. Can you say "back button"?
3. Seemingly in contradiction to (2) above, have well-designed, attractive pages. If you're design-challenged, hire somebody with a proven track record. Do hallway testing. Do A/B testing. And keep in mind that design is about much more than the visuals. Something really pretty that's also really pretty unusable or inaccessible will also earn a back button.
4. Take it easy on the pagination. You might have to break up long-form content to make it digestible or to get a better revenue balance from ads, but if you have a two-page article spread out over eight pages, people are not going to click "Next". And you'd better have a really, really good reason for hiding your content in a slide show. (One of the specialty sites belonging to the Toronto Star got a four-second visit from me on two different occasions. It doesn't matter that I wanted to read the article if I didn't particularly want to begin an immersive, interactive relationship with the article.)
You can probably think of a lot more once you're pointed in the right direction. Engaging your users is nice, but simply not pissing them off is much, much more important.
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¹ You're allowed ads, of course, but they'd better be alongside your content at the top. One banner is acceptable. Users don't like it, but they've resigned themselves to the inevitability. But there had better be some real meat available right off the bat. If you have interstitials (ads that interrupt the content), it had better be plain that the content continues or the user won't scroll.
1. Make sure your page does what it says on the tin. In other words, no search engine shenanigans like keyword cramming or pushing your content to the bottom of the page with a bunch of crap the user didn't come for (like ads).¹ If the user is coming from a search and can't immediately find a way to get to what it is they were searching for, they're gone already. If it's obvious that what they were actually searching for is nowhere to be found, not only are they gone, but if they're Chrome users, they'll probably ad your site to their personal blocklist. If it's an informational page, have the information there (no click-through nonsense UNLESS you have a no-exceptions paywall, which probably isn't a good idea in most cases). If they've come to buy something and they CAN buy it on your site, they had better be a price visible and a way to buy it waiting for them.
2. Bring the page and file sizes down, request numbers down, and the speed up. Performance counts. If I don't see something usable on the screen within the first couple of seconds, I'm not going to hang around to see how awesome your design is or what new coolness you're doing with jQuery, HTML5 and CSS3. As they say, time is money, and if you take my time you're not getting my money. Those forty-seven @font-face downloads you're using from Typekit or Adobe Edge sure look pretty, but each of them takes time to check your usage meter on the service, involves a multi-kilobyte download for me, and absolutely nothing is visible on the page until everything's finished. Can you say "back button"?
3. Seemingly in contradiction to (2) above, have well-designed, attractive pages. If you're design-challenged, hire somebody with a proven track record. Do hallway testing. Do A/B testing. And keep in mind that design is about much more than the visuals. Something really pretty that's also really pretty unusable or inaccessible will also earn a back button.
4. Take it easy on the pagination. You might have to break up long-form content to make it digestible or to get a better revenue balance from ads, but if you have a two-page article spread out over eight pages, people are not going to click "Next". And you'd better have a really, really good reason for hiding your content in a slide show. (One of the specialty sites belonging to the Toronto Star got a four-second visit from me on two different occasions. It doesn't matter that I wanted to read the article if I didn't particularly want to begin an immersive, interactive relationship with the article.)
You can probably think of a lot more once you're pointed in the right direction. Engaging your users is nice, but simply not pissing them off is much, much more important.
___________________________________________________________
¹ You're allowed ads, of course, but they'd better be alongside your content at the top. One banner is acceptable. Users don't like it, but they've resigned themselves to the inevitability. But there had better be some real meat available right off the bat. If you have interstitials (ads that interrupt the content), it had better be plain that the content continues or the user won't scroll.