If you have a "hit counter", remove it. They are a relic from the nineties, and never, ever serve to impress your users. Conversely, listing the number of subscribers to your newsletter can. See Leo’s blog to see what I mean.
Ben
Posts Tagged ‘Bells & Whistles’
July14
Hits
Clocks are useful. When you’re in a station or walking in the high street – the large clock is genuinely very helpful. Especially if you aren’t wearing a watch. So why not put one on your website?
Here’s why:
Don’t waste space on your website duplicating information that’s already on your user’s screen.
Ben
June9
Sound On Websites
Websites are dynamic things. Now that most internet users are on broadband (I’m even on broadband when I’m sitting in a café on on a train), we’re able to experience the internet in a fantastic content rich way that we could never have done 5 years ago. YouTube, the iPlayer, .com – all these sites offer sound and video and people love them. They are very popular sites, and we’re going to see more like them pop up this year, next year, and forever more.
So, if all this audiovisual content works, shouldn’t we have some on our websites? Isn’t that the way to excite users? Why not have some sort of audio announcement on every page? It’s dynamic. It gets noticed. It’s very Web 2.0 isn’t it? Surely it’s a good thing, right?
Wrong.
Never. Ever. Use. Sound. On. Your. Website. (without permission).
In fact, don’t do it with video either. The popular websites listed above understand this. Unfortunately, other companies don’t. Playing sounds without invitation is offensive. It invades the privacy of the user’s space. They do not want sounds to suddenly start blaring out to them without warning. Some may tolerate it, but most do not want it. No matter how clever or smart it may seem.
I visited a website selling music B2B to tv production companies recently. The first thing I noticed? The gunshot noise, followed by the James Bond theme tune. Clever? No. Really not. It pissed me off.
Then I visited another website that had something really clever. It had some bloke appear on the screen, and start explaining how to get the best out of the site. Someone had spent thousands developing it. I actually thought it was quite smart. Until I clicked on one of the language buttons at the top. The page reloaded, with the same bloke, who started explaining the site again, in English! This "multi-national" website was playing the same intrusive video in the wrong language to every non-English speaking visitor. They hadn’t even thought to put subtitles in. I then went back to the UK version, and this bloke appeared again. And then it clicked – he is always there. Every time you go to the site, he’s there. Once, it’s amusing, and quite smart. Second, it’s annoying. Third. Well, there is no third. Spending thousands building this very clever widget, has driven away repeat visits for this company. Shame.
Ben
May28
When Less is More
If content is king, shouldn’t we all try and fill our websites with as much text as is humanely possible? Won’t that get us the highest ranking in Google? Why don’t we just write pages and pages and pages of stuff, as much as we possibly can, and we’ll get to number one, won’t we? After all Content is King.
Content is king, but only if the content is high quality and is genuinely helpful to your users. Anything else is indulgent at best, and harmful at worst. Why? Because if you follow every SEO rule, you will have a highly visible website that no-one wants to visit.
Is it better to get 100,000 viewers a month and a 10% conversion rate, or 50,000 viewers a month and a 20% conversion rate? Without a doubt, the latter. It’s cheaper to market to 50,000 people, it’s cheaper to pay for the bandwidth of 50,000 visitors. In fact, the only argument I can think of for the former is "brand awareness" – but that argument falls flat on it’s face – because it’s better to have fewer people who love you than many people who like you.
Content is king when it’s quality content. Quantity is fine if you’re the next Wikipedia, or have an amazonian amount of stock for your online store. Even then, Amazon and Wikipedia have excellent quality (and no that’s not debatable – wikipedia may be a dubious source of real fact sometimes – but it delivers exactly what it promises – an encyclopedia by the people for the people).
Most websites would do better with half the word count. Are there ways in which you can cut down on your content? Remove anything that doesn’t give real value to your customers. Ask yourself the simple question after each sentence – so what? "Alpha Wave Media are pioneers of excellence and employ cutting edge technology to serve our clients needs" – so what? Yawn. I expect that from any web creation company. "Alpha Wave have 8 years experience making websites work for businesses". It’s shorter, but much better.
Go through your website and after every question, ask yourself "So what?". The result will be clear concise text that resonates with the people you can help.
Ben
Testing to make sure websites work across different browsers is part of the job of making websites. A whole plethora of tiny bits and pieces work different in FireFox than they do in Internet Explorer. In a bid to test a website thoroughly, it’s important to review every website you work on in all the major browsers. This includes Safari.
My laptop is neither fast nor slow. It’s decidedly average. The only things that’s are truly superb on it are the 17" screen and the full sized keyboard with keypad. Apart from that, it’s just plain OK.
I look at a lot of websites. I rely on the tools I use to get me the websites I want to see as quickly as possible. Therefore I want my browser to:
- Be quick.
- Have useful tools.
- Be quick.
That’s it. I certainly don’t want my browser to:
- Entertain.
- Excite.
- Give me an "experience".
- Do anything else beginning with E.
Safari. A case study in how to give your consumer something they don’t want. My experience went something like this:
- I open Safari 4 for the first time.
- I wait
- I wait a bit longer (by now I am very impatient, although it has probably only been 10 seconds).
- The main window loads, but something isn’t right. My computer fans start racing as my CPU goes into over-drive.
- After about 20 seconds (nails are being bit, hair is being pulled), I get an animated splash screen "welcoming me". I resist the urge to curse.
- My screen freezes. I get the "fatal error" message (see pic below).
- I stop resisting the urge.
- I hit the "Don’t Send" button and wait.
- I’m still waiting, and yet my fan is still (as i write this) going haywire, and my CPU is still going at 100%. My computer is effectively locked-up.
- I have to open the Task Manager, go to Processes, and manually end "Safari.exe". For the non-tech savvy person, the only fix would be to restart the computer.
I am not happy. But alas. Once I’ve made myself a cup of tea, and uttered a prayer to the gods of the interweb, I will try again. I will try again, because I have to. Most people don’t have the need I do. Most people would give up, and never try it again (I envy them).
There is no excuse for an experience this bad. Not from Apple, one of the big players. Look at your website and ask yourself, are there elements to the interaction that are driving people away? Forms, logins, registration – these are some of the major pitfalls of some sites. Get feedback from colleagues, employees, friends, relatives – ask them to buy something from your online store, or find a certain bit of information. Do this testing, and do it now. No-one is immune to making terrible mistakes and creating a horrible user experience.
Apple have proven that particularly well with Safari 4.
