In Learn to Write a Website Review, I outlined the framework of basic website review. If you are writing a basic website review then you only need to focus on design, navigation, content, and focus elements of a website. But a more complex website review will require you to focus many more elements after keeping all the elements of basic review in place. I would suggest you to read about basic Website Review before reading this post. I must tell you that writing more detailed review is more time consuming in comparison to the basic ones.
Fundamental
The first thing that should come after design, navigation, content, and focus elements in a website review is the fundamental check. You need to find out the following in a fundamental check:
- Is the navigation intuitive?
- Are the hyperlinks working properly?
- Is there any broken link?
- Does the website have a site map?
- Are the internal pages properly links with the home page and among themselves?
Effectiveness
Once you have verified the fundamentals of the website, you need to find out how effective website will be, and in order to do that try finding answers to the following questions:
- How difficult or easy it will be for a visitor to understand the purpose of the website?
- Will the visitors easily accomplish the goal the webmaster has in mind while creating the website?
- How much time will it take for the visitors to find out the core of the website?
- What element or elements will create hurdle in visitors’ mind?
Credentials
Almost all the websites has a about us page talking about what is the purpose of the website, who is running the show, what affiliations it got, etc. You need to find out that the credentials are properly laid or not, and in order to do that, you may need to answer the following:
- Can visitors easily find out who is running the show?
- Is the website written by one or multiple writers?
- Are the facts presented on the website right, and are they verifiable?
- Are the writers qualified to write on the topics website covers?
- Has the website got some industry affiliation or accreditation?
- Does it have Https (secure server)?
Advance elements
There are some more advance elements that you may care to find out for your review. You may want to find out the following:
- Color scheme (advanced design)
- Marketing and branding capability (branding and monetization)
- How quickly it loads (development issue)
- Are the widgets, forms, etc., working properly (development issue)
- What resolutions it supports (design element)
Tags: Affiliations, Credentials, Element, Elements Of A Website, Focus, Hurdle, Hyperlinks, Learn To Write, Navigation, Running, Site Map, Webmaster, Website Right, Website Visitors
We are often led to believe that web designing is nothing but a principle-led mechanical activity, which has very little to do with creativity. Well, I do not think so. It indeed is a principal-led mechanical activity as far as laying out a final page is concerned, but laying out is not when a page is designed. Creation of a web page is nothing but the final execution of the output a designer get during the long ideation. The web page is created then only in the mind of the web designer.
Creativity plays an important role in web designing and so does intuition.
What did I say…intuition?
How could intuition possibly be related to web designing?
Role of Intuition
Well, do not get bogged down by thinking that intuition does not matter in the process of designing a website because it does and it does a great deal. Talk of anything creative and you are talking of intuition playing a role in how it comes about. In terms of web designing, intuition play a significant part when:
- We chart out navigation map for the website. How users move from one place cannot be known by any other mean if not intuitively. You cannot explain how you know that the website visitors will go to c from a then come back to b then again to a then d and so on and so forth. An experienced web designer just knows how a visitor is going to interact with the website.
- We chose the color scheme. Indeed color theories are there to assist us on which color will look good with which color and which will look awful. But you cannot explain why a certain type of website works well with certain color scheme, while it fails when other color scheme is chosen. And why one color scheme works well with one type of website and does not work will with another kind of website.
- We decide the placement of elements in the website. There are many elements that are important for our website, but not all the elements will work at all places. Some elements work well when placed at the first position on above-the-fold while other works at eye-level. Can you explain why this subtle difference matter?
Can you help me find where else intuition plays an important role? Use the comment box and help me know more about this.
Tags: Color Scheme, Color Theories, Creation, Creative, Creativity, Designing A Website, Elements, Execution, Experienced Web Designer, First Position, Fo, Intuition, Map, Mechanical Activity, Plays, Principle, Web Designing, Web Page, Website Visitors
From the all-text beginning to today’s Flash and AJAX based website, website designing has come of age. Many things have changed in these years, but what hasn’t changed is the focus on usability. Usability of a website was at top of the priority list, back then, and it is at top of the priority list even now. The question now arises, what makes the website more functional?
There are certain elements that go into making or breaking the users’ experience of a website. The web design Professionals know these things, and beginners should aspire to know these things. Let’s make it clear: It does not matter how great your website looks, or how great a concept you have, if your website is not easy to use, it will not cut.
Let’s put the elements that go into making a user-friendly website in order here, so that the beginners can refer back to it when executing their projects. These elements will help the professionals as well in finding the missing part.
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Navigation and navigational structure: This is the most basic thing. Navigation and navigational structure is stairs and an elevator for your website. Visitors will use it to go from one page to another. Make the navigation structure as flat as possible. Do not use too many layers.
Apply 3-click rules: The 3-click rule means that the visitor to your website should reach wherever he or she wants to go in no more than 3 clicks.
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Page Layout and structure: The structure of a page and the layout you will employ should not look cluttered. Give as much breathing space as you can. The more whitespace you will leave on your web page the easier your web page will go on the visitors. You can use other colors as the background color, instead of white, for your website as well, but I prefer to keep it white. It makes the web page look serene, calm, and non-obtrusive.
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Loading time: the website’s loading time is another factor one should care about while designing a website. A website that loads faster gets more visitors. You can improve the loading time by removing unnecessary lines of codes, optimizing images, flash, JavaScript, etc.
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Screen Resolution: Let’s accept it, you might have the latest screen, but not everyone own the same screen that you have. Hence, do a little bit of research to see that what screen resolution is in fashion now and make your website compatible to that. There is nothing like standard screen resolution. The screen resolution changes with changing technology.
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Browser Compatibility: Your website should look the same across the browsing platform. At least make it look good on Internet Explorer, and Firefox. I would also not suggest ignoring Opera and Chrome.
Tags: 5 Elements, Ajax, Background Color, Breathing Space, Colors, Designing A Website, Elements Of Web Design, Elevator, Loading Time, Many Things, Navigation Structure, Page Layout, Priority, Stairs, Usability, Users Experience, Web Design Professionals, Web Page, Website Designing, Website Visitors
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