If first impressions are everything, then you'd
better make sure your home page is giving a good first impression, preferably a
great first impression.
Neatness
counts
When you invite someone into your house, do you
leave the place a mess or tidy up? You tidy up of course. You make sure
everything is in just the right spot with everything dusted and cleaned. The
same goes for your home page. Spell check and proofread everything. Check every
link for validation. Make sure every graphic is coming up. Use only your best
graphics.
Now, check it again.
The WOW factor
A phrase that I've coined is called "The WOW
factor." The WOW factor isn't easily defined. It also isn't easily created.
My best definition for it is when a visitor says, "WOW, I've found THE site
on the subject I'm looking for. Let me bookmark it and tell my friends."
The WOW factor really is a combination of graphic
design and packaging. It also depends on the site. For instance, no one says
"Wow" when they log on to CNN's site because they know a huge team
programmers and graphic designers built it. However, they may say
"Wow" if they log on to TheOnion (www.theonion.com), even though its
created by a team of people as well.
For me, VirtualPROMOTE (www.virtualpromote.com)
says "Wow". And, I hope my site says "Wow" as well. Table
the idea
Any modern web designer worth his/her salt
designs a home page in tables. Tables allow the designer to better control what
a visitor sees when they enter the home page. Tables are also very important in
giving a home page some structure. Many designers fall for the old scrolling,
horizontal graphic-separated, home page of boredom. Tables cure this condition
by allowing the designer to make columns. Columns allow a webmaster to put more
things on the screen at one time, in easy to read blocks of text.
In a way very similar to newspapers, home pages
built with tables and columns allows the webmaster to control the eye movement
of a visitor. The two generally accepted notions in newspaper are the
"S" and the "Z". To see this effect, I've analyzed the front
page of my local daily newspaper.
H - Headline
T - Text
X - Graphic/Photo
H H H H H
T T T T T
T X X X T
T X X X T
T T T T T
X X T T T
T T T T T X
While it may not be apparent from my crude ASCII
illustration. This page represents the "Z" style of eye movement. The
eyes start at the headline, move down through the large photo in the middle, on
down to the graphic illustration in the lower left of the page, and on over to
the color picture in the lower right. Hopefully, at this point a reader flips
the page and keeps reading.
While web sites don't necessary have to follow
newspaper design. It is important to keep eye movement in mind when designing
your page. What do you want people's eyes to see first, second, third? If a
graphic is visually very powerful, is it clickable so they can continue their
journey through your site? Where should they end up? Does your site have the
visual cues to help a visitor's eyes flow through your site?
An important item to remember is that headlines
(large words) are more powerful than photos/graphics. Also, a good tip on eye
movement with graphics and photos is to have the object pointing/looking in
toward the rest of the page instead of away from it. This helps guide the reader
into the content.
