Limit rather than confuse.

This is an issue that we have experienced more than we actually would admit. When building a new website it is easy for someone to feel that they must offer their users every imaginable feature. The results are typically a complicated navigation process, confusing content, and a general lack of direction for future site features.

So what then is the key to ensuring this doesn’t happen to your site?
Limit rather than confuse.

Ok, ok, so what do I mean? Quite simply, if a feature seems unnecessary or would benefit less than a fifth of our users, abstain. Don’t build it. Building a feature that is only useful to a small percentage of your users doesn’t make sense, especially from a return on investment perspective.

Remember MySpace? They let users run wild customizing and adding everything possible to their MySpace page. The result? Users were able to customize images, CSS, and it eventually lead to their pages being so complicated and confusing that usability went out the window. Each MySpace profile page had its own navigation scheme, or lack thereof, color scheme, and varying content. Users had too much choice, too many features.

The trend of limiting features is happening in Social Media sites, just look at MySpace versus Facebook, and Facebook versus Twitter. Users want great features but not at the expense of being confused. Build a few features and build them great.

Homepages that work: Amazon.com

Amazon.com is America’s largest online retailer with over 50 million visitors a month. With so much traffic, how do they tailor to each user and convert them?

Goals: sell online & offline products, sell user’s content & items, sign up new users, extend website’s reach

Audience: consumers, sellers, writers, businesses, developers and advertisers

Clear, consistent navigation.

The header of the homepage features the logo that doubles as a home button, a left hand navigation bar, an expanding search bar, a shopping cart button and a login for returning users. All of the elements remain consistent throughout the rest of the site, even the left hand navigation bar which condenses into a drop down on subpages to allow for underlying content to fill the full width of the page. Read the rest of this entry »

How well does your website convert users?

Maybe you already have a website or maybe you are planning out a new one. In either case, you need to spend some time and thought on defining conversions.

What is a conversion you ask? A conversion happens when a user on your site takes an action that you intended. If you have an eCommerce site, and a visitor makes a purchase on your site, that’s a conversion.

Light vs Heavy

Now that we know what a conversion is, let’s talk about Heavy Conversions and Light Conversions.

A Heavy Conversion is an action that takes a lot from the user, such as a purchase, filling out a contact form, or becoming a member of your site. Typically, a Heavy Conversion requires the user to give something up, such as money. Read the rest of this entry »