Effective Structure
It's important that you analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of your:
- Navigation
- Information Architecture
- Design Styles/Colours
- Copy
- Images
- Layout
- Tehnology
- Fonts
- Speed
NavigationWe all know how to navigate our environment - we know where we are - we have maps - we know where we want to go and we understand the mechanisms in our world to get there. We all know how to read a book and use the index or table of contents for find our way around. Navigating a website is not so simple or so linear. A link on one page might take you to 10 links that spawn 100 more pages.
Website NavigationA website navigation system is the mode by which your visitor finds what they are looking for on your site. Your visitor will not spend time learning how your navigation works so it needs to be simple and consistent and answer the following questions for your visitor:
- Where am I?
- What's here?
- Where else can I go?
- How do I go forward?
- How do I go back?
Information ArchitectureInformation Architecture is the term used to describe the organisation of information. This could be the process of determining how many categories your web site contains or what they mgiht be called. The objective of Information Architecture is to organize information to make the content easier to find.
Common Organisational Systems- Alphabetical
- Geographical
- Chronological
- Audience-specific
- By Metaphor
- By Topic
- By importance to the Developer
- By Importance to the user
- Custom
Design Styles/Colours/Layout The layout of your site will depend entirely on your objective for the site and its target audience. It needs to be appropriate for the market it is aiming for. Consider whether it's B2B or B2C or both. Is it corporate, professional, sporty, entertaining, educational etc?
Whatevery layout you choose, remember to consider the "fold". That is how much is immediately visible in the browser window without scrolling down. Make line widths easy to read and remeber the value of white space. White space is easier on the eye and makes it easier to find what you are looking for.
Choosing Colour Themes The colour scheme you choose might be governed by your existing corporate colours, logos, brochures, branding etc.
If your target audience is male then you need to consider the colours that you use on your site. Most people with colour blindness are white males.
Colour Vision DeficiencyColour-vision deficiency concerns differentiating between colours. Red and Green are the colours most affected by colour-deficiency. Very few people have a Blue deficiency. Red and Green are often seen as Yellow and Beige or orange and not as grey, so it's no good testing your site in greyscale to check its accessibility. Nearly all colour blind people can distinguish brightness and contrast.
There are 3 main types of colour-vision deficiency.
- Protan – can’t see Red – cannot distinguish Reds and Greens – Reds appear dark. Red and Black can seem the same if the Red is dim enough.
- Deutan – can’t see Red and Green. But no brightness deficiency.
- Tritan – can’t see Red, Green and Blue. Blues and Greens are confused.
Emotion and Colour AssociationsColours in the red area of the colour spectrum are known as warm colours and include red, orange and yellow. These warm colours evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility.
Colours on the blue side of the spectrum are known as cool colours and include blue, purple and gteen. These colours are often described as calm, but can also call to mind feelings of sadness and indifference.
Colour associations can be cultural and to some extent, industry-specific, so care needs to be taken if your target audience is a particular industry, ethnic group of country.
Example Colour Associations
Blue: represents peace, tranquility, calm, stability, harmony, unity, trust, confidence, conservatism, secuity, cleanliness, order, loyalty, sky, water, cold, technology. Blue is considered a business colour because it reflects reliability.
Black: represents power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, anonymity, unhappiness, depth, style, sadness, remorse, anger, underground, good technical colour, mourning and death.
Green: represents nature, environment, health, good luck, renewal, youth, vigour, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy, misfortune. Its cool quality soothes, calms and has healing powers.
Orange: expresses energy, warmth, enthusiasm, vibrance, flamboyancy, and is attention getting, also has a luminous quality. Often used on caution signs.
Purple: represents royalty, spirituality, nobility, ceremony, mystery, transformation, wisdom, enlightenment, cruelty, arrogance, mourning. Considered an exotic colour used for targeting creative types.
Red: represents warmth, love, valentines, danger, desire, speed, strength, violence, anger, emergency exit signs, stop signs and blood.
White; represents reverence, purity, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, birth, winter, snow, good, sterility and marriage.
Yellow: represents joy, happiness, optimism, idealism, imagination, hope, sunshine, summer, gold, philosophy, dishonesty, cowardice, betrayal, jealousy, covetousness, deceit, illness, hazard, spirituality and inspiration.
CopySee the separate Copy page.
ImagesWe all like to see beautiful pictures but on the web they should be used with care. Images can often cause your site to be so slow to download that visitors will leave in frustration. Not everyone is on broadband, so image file size is still a major issue. Images when used, should be optimized to produce the smallest possible file size without losing too much quality.
FontsChoices for web fonts are much more limited than the choice of fonts for printed media. When you use a particular font in your page, visitors will only see that font if they have it pre-installed on their systems. Your audience will probably be viewing your site from either a Windows computer or a Mac. Easy to read on screen are Arial and Verdana.
speedConsider carefully the size of your pages (with images) as any site that takes too long to download to users who are not on broadband is doomed. The same is true for Flash Intoduction pages as these can often irritate and lose you potential customers. Call us now on 0845 8386377 to find out more.
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