In this space you will find some tricks, tips, and advice to make a website perform at its best and to give it a more professional appearance.
How many times during a particularly slow browsing session have we thought that the slowness was entirely due to our Internet provider’s connectivity? Never, ever would we have thought that maybe the fault was the website we visited.
Let’s turn the discussion around, from the point of view of those who manage the website (the Webmaster, indeed). Those who manage a website (whether personal or perhaps with some semi-professional ambitions) and complain about the short duration visitors spend on the site should start to wonder if the “disaffection” of browsers towards their website is more attributable to the HTML code of the pages that compose it rather than to the content. Often, in fact, the cause of all this is precisely the HTML code or the poor “structure” of our site. Perhaps the latter needs a “beauty treatment” or rather a “usability treatment.”
The term usability indicates the measure of a product’s potential (here we’re talking about websites, but the concept is also applicable to software as well as to toasters, dishwashers, alarm clocks, and so on) to satisfy the user’s objectives. Some of the factors used to determine usability are ease of use, visual consistency and coherence, and a clear and defined evolutionary process. In short, a “usable” website is one that does not complicate life for users. The term usability in the context of websites has recently (fortunately) seen increasing diffusion and application. So we thought that there was a need to clarify the topic a bit and we decided to gather some suggestions aimed at improving your site in order to enhance the site-user relationship. Below you will find a series of rules, norms, suggestions, and tips to make your website easier to navigate and ultimately more pleasant to visit.
Avoid “dead ends”
When creating your web pages, try to ensure that the user does not get trapped on the page because they can’t find a way out. Make sure every page of your site offers the user at least one way to go back and that the user is not forced (at best) to go back by clicking the browser’s back button.
Use a consistent style”
Although some might find it difficult to apply and perhaps not so creative (can you imagine a weekly magazine with each page designed with a different text and graphic style?), try to use stylistic (text) and graphic (images) consistency among the elements composing your pages. Certain identifying elements of some site areas should always be positioned in the same place. This way you create ease of search and navigation. One such element is undoubtedly the navigation menu which must be placed in the same spot with the same text and/or graphic setting on different pages.
Test your website in multiple configurations”
Not all users of your site use the browser you use to view pages and they do not use the same screen resolution you usually use. There are many and very different browsers used by Internet users (besides the widely used Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 4, 5 and 6, we must not forget Netscape 4.X and 6, Mozilla 1.0, Opera 5 and 6 and others), computers (tons of PCs and fewer Macs) and their operating systems (from Microsoft Windows 9X, Me, 2000 and XP on PCs, with Linux as an outsider, to MacOS 8.X and 9.X and MacOS X on Macintosh). It is therefore important to check that the site is displayed correctly and without misalignments using multiple video resolutions (the most common nowadays is 800X600) since not all users habitually use the same resolution. To do this, simply change your screen configuration (in Windows right-click on an empty desktop area and choose Properties, then from the Settings tab move the slider in the Screen Area section; on Mac choose from the Control Panel the Sound and Monitor entry for MacOS 8.X or Monitor for MacOS 9.X) or, if possible, use several computers in your lab and different browsers and resolutions.
Pay attention to the site’s opening”
We are not referring to opening the site’s window but to the opening space (just to borrow a term so dear to journalism). The top part, i.e., the most visible area when the site’s homepage is viewed, should contain the most important news or those you want to prioritize. Not all users, in fact, have the patience or willingness to scroll the vertical scrollbar to take a look at the entire content of your homepage. Also avoid forcing users to scroll horizontally. The annoying appearance of scroll bars is a common problem for those testing the site with only one resolution. Speaking in terms of a browser expanded full screen, to get the correct sizes applied to all pages of a website, remember to subtract from the “standard” ones (from the now historical resolution of 640×480, standard VGA, a bit too low, to the current 800×600 up to the “futuristic” 1024×768) the pixels related to the browser user interface elements (for 800×600 resolution consider a maximum width of 750 pixels; if you want to avoid even the vertical scroll bar, consider 410 pixels in height).
Pubblicato in Digital Tools
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