50 Tips To A User Friendly Website
Here is a list of 50 things that I keep in mind on every website that I build. Some of these are secrets I have acquired from the best designers in the world, and some of them are standard every day practices. Either way, these tips will improve your visitors experience on your website.
Blurry, Colorblind and Brilliant
“Design is in the details.” - We hear it every day and it is absolutely true. However, details without a blueprint to tie things together can lead to problems. We are passionate about details, perfect grid alignment, perfect color combinations, gradients, reflections and textures. These visual details have a major aesthetic impact on the website, but they can’t replace the content – The reason the website exists in the first place.
Embedded Fonts – A Bad Idea
Embedding fonts in your website through CSS has been a widely anticipated feature. A recent post at A List Apart has brought more light to this issue recently. The excitement behind this revolves mostly around removing creative limitations and improving readability through better typography.
However, I anticipate the use of embedded fonts will make things much worse, before they get better. Stephen Coles and I are in much agreement on the issue.
Typography on the Web
Typography is fundamental to clean design, and paramount to content. Bad typography will drive users away from your content, while good typography will keep things legible and draw your readers eye to important sections. Your content should be easy to skim for those in a rush, and also easy to read more deeply.
Typography on the web should stem from print media. People are used to reading newspapers, paperbacks, and other paper documents. Study these and keep your web pages consistent with these.
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Latest Comments
- Nate Klaiber → “ The design industry is plagued with the misconception that product manuals are evil. These designers believe that your product should be intuitive enough to use without a manual. While there is a certain truth to this, there are many viable reasons for product manuals to be used. There needs to be a certain…”
- Joe Fiorini → “ The design industry is plagued with the misconception that product manuals are evil. These designers believe that your product should be intuitive enough to use without a manual. While there is a certain truth to this, there are many viable reasons for product manuals to be used. There needs to be a certain…”
- Roger F Carver → “ The Google Charts API is an excellent way to add high quality charting to your web application. We first started working with the API as part of the Simpli5 dashboard development, and were quite impressed with its functionality and ease of use. Wrapper classes were developed and added to our Sandstone Application Framework to make…”
- Nate Klaiber → “ The “I agree” checkbox has become an interface standard on registration forms. “I agree to the terms and conditions.” While it’s purpose is generally understood by the consumer, it is a key source of frustration for people registering for accounts. eBay's Registration, as an example Why it’s overlooked: Checkboxes are small, particularly ones which aren’t grouped…”
- Josh Walsh → “ Most of the value you gain from a usability testing session comes from the analysis after the session is complete. I have been involved in a few sessions recently where no formal analysis has been conducted. I believe this is a mistake. Traditionally, the analysis portion of a usability session takes quite a long…”