From the course: User Experience for Web Design

Focus on information

From the course: User Experience for Web Design

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Focus on information

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- In order to design a site that people enjoy using, you need to know what motivates them. When people use the web, they're almost always doing so to find information, not for pure entertainment. That means that most people will come to your site with a particular goal in mind. They probably also got to you from a search engine or by following a link, rather than by knowing your direct URL. If you don't believe me, check out the stats for your site. Typically, many more visitors are referred by search engines or links than come directly. Coincidentally, you can also use these stats to find out what people's goals were, and that helps you clarify what it is that visitors want from your site. Because people are coming to your site with a specific goal in mind, it's important that you help them quickly reach that goal. Because they're coming from search engines and links more than from typing in a URL, they're typically not coming to your homepage, but to a page somewhere deeper within the site. So it's important that this first page they see lets them know whether they're on track to get the information they need. Each page has to say what the site is about and give visitors an understanding of how information is laid out. You can accomplish this by having a clear site tagline and by making sure that your navigation is descriptive, either of the items that people can find on the site or of the tasks that they can perform. Each page should also clearly show what it is about, using a descriptive page heading, and if it's relevant, informative pictures and summary text. All of this content helps visitors to see that they're on track to find the information they care about and to navigate easily to the part of your site that contains it. So, by making sure that your site helps people to quickly orient themselves and work out whether you have the information they want, you make their lives easier. That makes them happier, and therefore more willing to use your site in the future.

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