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1 Three Elements of WWW Site Success
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Cartwheels from the edge of reality
Three Elements of WWW Site Success
From: Bob Novick
Subject: Three Elements of WWW Site Success
In the past two weeks we have been searching for a design firm to work on
our own site. I've visited dozens of web-designers' home pages, as well
as hundreds of commercial sites, all with the eye of a critic.
(By the way, I agree with Glenn that Voyagerco and CMDesigns are both
excellent sites: I bought or downloaded something at each site, and
remember them both very clearly.)
As a result, I've formulated three principles of a good Web site. I believe
that all three are required for long-term success and that few sites now
can claim excellence in all three areas. More importantly, I believe
that there are few, if any, Web design firms which are equally capable in
all three areas. In order of importance:
- 1
- Excellent content. This means that for your target
audience, the site must contain material of value not more easily
available elsewhere. You are competing with others for the attention
and $$ of this audience. What you offer: information, recreation or
merchandise must strike the target audience visitor as uniquely
worthwhile. Of course this implies that you know who the target
audience is and that you understand what they want/will respond to.
- 2
- Excellent design. Your site should be easy to
access, pages load quickly, be easy to navigate and as simple as
possible and free of errors. Using your site should require a minimum
of instruction and you should not be wasting words on how to use or
navigate your site. Most importantly, your product or service should be
the "hero" of your site - it should be promoting and enhancing what you
have to offer, not detracting from it. You have only a relatively few
seconds (usually at the first page) to convince a visitor to look
further and be led to your merchandise. I think that for any site I
visit, if I don't "buy" or try or download or sign-up for something,
they've screwed up.
- 3
- Excellent graphics. Graphics serve two purposes:
they can assist in the design of the site, making it easier to navigate
and reducing reliance on written instructions. However, graphics have a
second important and often overlooked value - to make your site
memorable so that it stands out in the visitor's memory afterwards. The
goal should be that each visitor remembers where he or she got that
widget or piece of information. A memorable graphic can be a big help.
I am not advocating big, slow-to-load graphics since that is a bad
design principle.
Another purpose of good graphics is to make the visitor's stay at your
site more pleasurable so that they feel more inclined to stay longer and
therefore have more likelihood of buying.
I invite comments and critique. How many of you feel that your own
site measures up to all three criteria?
Bob
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Bob Novick
Impulse Research
Los Angeles, California, USA
bnovick@netcom.com
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Cartwheels from the edge of reality
1 Three Elements of WWW Site Success
Bob Novick
Impulse Research
Los Angeles, California, USA
bnovick@netcom.com
0 Thurs Jun 8 1995
clburke@carolyn.org
Finite Systems Consulting
Cartwheels from the edge of reality