Analyzing/Planning the Website Design

Search Engine Friendly Website Design Is NOT So Different to User Friendly Website Design!

It's a well known fact that search engines prefer text - not only mostly textual websites but a lot of text (250+ characters). They don't see the fancy graphics or flesh. They dislike frames, avoid following database links or Java script links, and tend to stumble on longer scripts and even on too many Style Elements incorporated in the Head section of your HTML.

And what about the real visitors? Are they so different?
Do they really prefer flash, a lot of graphics, buttons and Java script links?

Users with disabilities certainly don't.
Senior citizens often don't. And seniors are one of the fastest growing Internet populations, according to Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox research. Latest statistics shows that US alone has about 4.2 million Internet users over the age of 65. All users DON'T have perfect vision and/or motor control, and DON'T know everything about the Internet.
Those users with rich media enhancements turned off obviously avoid them.

What about just ordinary average visitors?

According to Jupiter Media Metrix study, fast loading, efficient and more informative websites will drive greater customer retention than those that offer rich media enhancements:

• only 20% of Internet users would visit a site more often if it had rich media enhancements
• 40% of respondents would visit a site more often if the pages would load faster
• 59% of retail shoppers wanted more product information - more text on the page.

But if used sparingly and suggestively, to enhance the existing valuable information "images are powerful communicators when they show items of interest to users." (Jakob Nielsen)

Jakob Nielsen's research reveals that:

• Java Script in Links is among the Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002.
• Users strongly dislike horizontal scrolling in general, and webpages requiring scrolling left to right in standard-sized windows, e.g. 800x600 pixels, are specially irritating, according to Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002.
• Users often dismiss graphics as ads, and focus on the parts of the homepage that look more likely to be useful.
• Seniors strongly prefer those websites that are easiest for them to use.

"It has been obvious from day one on the Web that what people want is fast-downloading, information-rich Web sites. Speed is a critical factor that drives Web use. When people come to a Web site, they are invariably looking for information. They don't want to hang around. They don't want to be left waiting. The best Web site is the one that gets them to the right content in the fastest time". Gerry McGovern, web content management expert.

On the other hand, one of Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 was also Blocks of Text:

"A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read. Write for online, not print".

That's why you should listen to the usability guru Jacob Nielsen and many others, and use well-documented techniques that support scannability to attract the users, such as: headlines, subheadlines, the inverted pyramid, short paragraphs, bulleted lists, highlighted keywords, and avoid complicated sentence structure and marketing style. Writing for the Web differs a lot from writing for print. [Website Copywriting]

You should also remember all the basic techniques useful both to website visitors and search engine optimization. [Website Design & Usability]

And there is still much more interesting and valuable information you should take into consideration.

Animation Impact and Usability

According to Microsoft's usability research, movement in peripheral vision can dominate visitors' attention:

• looping animation make it very hard for visitors to concentrate on other page content
• moving text is harder to read than static text
  

But if animation are used purposely, to draw the audience's attention to a single element out of several, or to alert people to updated information, they could be very useful. Naturally, along with appropriate user centered textual alternative that is also effective for search engine optimization.

PDF file Impact and Usability

Jakob Nielsen's research uncovers PDF files should be avoided for on-screen reading, because it increases task time, leads to more frequent failures, and browsing PDF files makes usability approximately 300% worse compared to HTML pages.

PDF files should be used exclusively for documents that need to be printed, and even when you provide a PDF document just for download, you should follow PDF usability guidelines (A Look at Accessibility Challenges Regarding PDF Files):

• Create a HTML page with a summary of the PDF file, including PDF size and number of pages, so the users could determine its significance for their purposes in advance.
  
• Provide the links to conventional HTML webpage with the same content for readers who prefer to read online, underlining that the PDF is exclusively for printing purposes.
  
• All the links on your website should be to the above conventional webpage and NOT to PDF file
• Search engines should index your HTML page and NOT the PDF file
• PDF file should be done in previous PDF versions and NOT the latest.
  

Newsletter Impact and Usability

Recent Jakob Nielsen's study shows that users still prefer newsletters, even "have highly emotional reactions to newsletters." Thus, newsletters produce a stronger bond between user and company than a website, but possible usability problems also have stronger impact on the CRM than average. Naturally, newsletter design is very important. Newsletters must be helpful, relevant, simple and not too long. If they do have interesting relevant content they could be longer, but must support scanning - the same as webpage. In fact, most of the basic principles for online writing should be the same for newsletter.

Deep Linking Impact and Usability

It's a well known fact that the homepage gets more page views than any other webpage. But, visitors may also come following the links from search engines and other websites that lead to webpages other than homepage.

It's important to understand that these deep links offer enhanced usability, leading users directly to specific webpages,e deep inside your website, that relate exactly to the thematic users are looking for.

To support deep linking users, eebsites should follow these guidelines (Deep Linking is Good Linking):

• Use particular design elements on each and every webpage:
  company name and/or logo
  direct link to the homepage
  search if needed
  to inform the users where did the 'land' and how to get to other parts of the website.
• Use breadcrumb navigation "to orient the user relative to the rest of the website."
• Note that users may not have seen all the relevant information contained on higher-level pages -mention them again and include all the relevant links (but NOT the ones "unrelated to their current location").

Breadcrumb Navigation

Breadcrumb navigation shows the current webpage's context inside the website structure.

Breadcrumb technique allows the user to understand the information grouping structure and to move between these groupings.

The breadcrumb navigation for this webpage would be:

Integral Website Marketing Strategies > Analyzing/Planning the Website
  Content > Deep Linking Impact and Usability > Breadcrumb navigation

Web Design and Online Marketing by Distinctia, 2003