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6 Ultimate Rules to Put Up a User-Friendly Website
Good example
For starters, this is what a user-friendly website really looks like.
It has a clean and understandable navigation, rich functionality and fully responsive design that can be browsed on any modern desktop or handheld device.
That’s the way to go!
Everybody wants an eye-catching website, we can relate to that! Sometimes things can go way too wrong.
Please, don’t go design-crazy just because you want to stand out!
This is an example of a website nobody will call user-friendly for sure!
Bad example
Nobody wants their website to be laughed at. This is why the notions of usability and user-friendliness have appeared.
Basically, a user-friendly website means that website users can quickly and easily learn to navigate and intuitively use a certain web resource – which is, of course, ideal.
A 90’s flashback that will make you love today’s Internet
So Why Is Usability Important?
Follow these 6 useful rules to establish a user-friendly website:
✓ Make it accessible.✓ Create obvious navigation.✓ Keep it relevant and up-to-date. ✓ Avoid being design-crazy.✓ Speed up the loading time. ✓ Make it mobile-friendly.
If the viewers flee your website in 2 sec, it is a disaster!
Rule #1 Make Your Website Accessible
Your website must be visible, readable and audible to everyone (including the elderly and people with disabilities).
Ensure: ✓ Your website is compatible with on-
screen readers. ✓ The font size and color are comfortable
for reading.✓ Use valid HTML and CSS coding.
And a tip for the gurus: ✓ Use alt, title and longdesc attributes
for elements on your page.
In case you didn’t know, there’s the 508 website accessibility
guidelines at your service.
No clue where to start describing this particular website.
Fonts that make your eyes hurt, random information impossible to comprehend, lack of navigation, strange links and weird sound effects are but a few of the striking features of this website.
When accessibility has gone terribly wrong
Rule #2 Create Obvious Navigation
Don’t make people hate the Internet just because of a bad website usability.
✓ Make any page reachable in 2 clicks.Literally!
✓ Reveal users’ location on a website offering a site map/site wide search and a Breadcrumb trail.
✓ People expect to see About and Contact pages. How can they reach out to you then?
Provide obvious navigation, put it on top or to the left side of your website.
The concept of obvious navigation suggests that page titles help the viewers of the website to find what they are looking for easily.
Colorful menu items make the sections of this website stand out.
Great example of obvious navigation
Rule #3 Keep Your Website Relevant
✓ Provide regular content updates. Just don’t be lazy!
✓ Keep your fonts and font colors readable.
✓ Ensure your content is easy to scan/skim. Nobody wants to read an encyclopaedia!
✓ Structure into lists, use bullets, headings, sub-headings and paragraphs. Old news and ancient articles
make people yawn!
✓ Be consistent with how you divide your textual content. Try to avoid long paragraphs.
✓ It’s all about readability. Headlines 1 and 3 have better contrast and are the easiest to read. While headlines 2 and 4 some people may find more pleasing to the eye.
Rule #4 Avoid Being Design Crazy
A user-friendly website: ✓ Has contrasting color schemes and
readable fonts.✓ Uses images that emphasize the
text, not distract from it. ✓ Pop ups are avoided, no use of
blinking, spinning and flashing images.
✓ Keywords and links stand out. ✓ Wise use of white spaces to define
the areas of a web page.This is what we call design-crazy website.
Don’t do that. Ever.
These are the things that make this website look so neat:
✓ Light color scheme.✓ The logo and the navigation
bar are at the top, closer to the left.
✓ Home, About, Contact and FAQ pages are used for better navigation.
✓ Clever use of fonts and images makes elements stand out.
Great design example
Rule #5 Speed Up the Loading Time
To get faster make sure:✓ The images are optimized and
correctly displayed.✓ Home page is not overloaded with
excessive multimedia (videos, flash).
Also, it’s good to check, if:✓ HTML, CSS, and Javascript are
minimized and in place. An average website loads in
4-6 seconds. Make things faster!
Rule #6Make Your Website Mobile-Friendly
Make sure to: ✓ Use a website theme with
responsive design / the one that uses CSS media queries.
✓ Check if your website is mobile-optimized (it is simple and intuitive, has quick loading time).
✓ Provide consistency of your site on both desktop and handheld devices.
With over 300 million active cell phones in the U.S., 25% of web traffic originates
from a mobile device.
How do I get a user-friendly website design?
To get a design for your website you can go one of the 3 directions:
✓ Create a website design by yourself Requires great programming skills and lots of time.
✓ Order a website theme at a web-design studio Requires spending extra money and time.
✓ Purchase a ready-made website theme from TemplateMonster.Inexpensive, easy and fast to obtain + high quality guaranteed.
Buying a user-friendly website theme from TemplateMonster:
✓ Saves your precious time.✓ Saves your money.✓ Saves your nerves.
Make your site one of the great examples of a user-friendly web design.
Take a look at the best examples of user-friendly website designs at: www.templatemonster.com
Follow us on social networks:
To learn how to build user-friendly websites, check out StartUp Hub:www.templatemonster.com/startup-hub
