Guidelines for Microcontent

• Clearly explain what the article (or email) is about in terms that
  relate to the user. Microcontent should be an ultra-short abstract of its
  associated macrocontent.
  
• Written in plain language: no puns, no "cute" or
  "clever" headlines.
  
• No teasers that try to entice people to click to find
  out what the story is about.

Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability

Summary:


A company's homepage is its face to the world and the starting point for most user visits. Improving your homepage multiplies the entire website's business value, so following key guidelines for homepage usability is well worth the investment.

Make the Site's Purpose Clear: Explain Who You Are and What You Do

1. Include a One-Sentence Tagline

2. Write a Window Title with Good Visibility in Search Engines and Bookmark Lists

Help Users Find What They Need

4. Emphasize the Site's Top High-Priority Tasks

5. Include a Search Input Box

Reveal Site Content

6. Show Examples of Real Site Content

7. Begin Link Names with the Most Important Keyword

Use Visual Design to Enhance, not Define, Interaction Design

9. Don't Over-Format Critical Content, Such as Navigation Areas

10. Use Meaningful Graphics

Summary:


Introductory text on Web pages is usually too long, so users skip it. But short intros can increase usability by explaining the remaining content's purpose.

The introductory paragraph(s) found at the top of many Web pages is what I call blah-blah text: a block of words that users typically skip when they arrive at a page. Instead, their eyes go directly to more actionable content, such as product features, bulleted lists, or hypertext links.

The worst kind of blah-blah has no function; it's pure filler — platitudes, such as "Welcome to our site, we hope you will find our new and improved design helpful."

Kill the welcome mat and cut to the chase.

• What? (What will users find on this page — i.e., what's its function?)
  
• Why? (Why should they care — i.e., what's in it for them?)

Information Foraging: Why Google Makes People Leave Your Site Faster

Summary:


The easier it is to find places with good information, the less time users will spend visiting any individual website. This is one of many conclusions that follow from analyzing how people optimize their behavior in online information systems.

Information Scent: Predicting a Path's Success

The patch-leaving model thus predicts that visits will become ever shorter. Google and always-on connections have changed the most fruitful design strategy to one with three components:

• Support short visits; be a snack
  
• Encourage users to return; use mechanisms such as newsletters as a reminder
  
• Emphasize search engine visibility and other ways of increasing frequent visits by addressing users' immediate needs

• What gain can I expect from a specific information nugget (such as a Web page)?
  
• What is the likely cost to discover and consume that information? (Cost is typically measured in time and effort, though it could include a monetary component in a micropayment system.)

For the same reason, it's usually better to write a positive statement ("do X") than a negative statement ("avoid Y"), and it's almost always horrible to use double negatives ("avoid not doing X"). Again, the simpler the translation between the text and the user's mental model, the easier the writing is to understand.

Given that users often read only a couple of words from each text element, you should reduce duplication of salient keywords.

• Don't use the same initial keywords in your headline and summary. You have 4 words to make your point, so use 4 different words.

Information Pollution

Summary:


Excessive word count and worthless details are making it harder for people to extract useful information. The more you say, the more people tune out your message.

How Users Read on the Web

People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.

As a result, Web pages have to employ scannable text, using

• highlighted keywords (hypertext links serve as one form of highlighting; typeface variations and color are others)
  
• meaningful sub-headings (not "clever" ones)
  
• bulleted lists
  
• one idea per paragraph (users will skip over any additional ideas if they are not caught by the first few words in the paragraph)
  
• the inverted pyramid style, starting with the conclusion
  
• half the word count (or less) than conventional writing

Hypertext Structure

2. No Author Photo

• It offers a more personable impression of the author. You enhance your credibility by the simple fact that you're not trying to hide. Also, users relate more easily to somebody they've seen.
  
• It connects the virtual and physical worlds. People who've met you before will recognize your photo, and people who've read your site will recognize you when you meet in person

Your posting's title is microcontent and you should treat it as a writing project in its own right. On a value-per-word basis, headline writing is the most important writing you do.

Descriptive headlines are especially important for representing your weblog in search engines, newsfeeds (RSS), and other external environments. In those contexts, users often see only the headline and use it to determine whether to click into the full posting.

4. Links Don't Say Where They Go

Generally, you should provide predictive information in either the anchor text itself or the immediately surrounding words. You can also use link titles for supplementary information that doesn't fit with your content.

6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation

8. Mixing Topics

10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

Featuritis vs. the Happy User Peak

So again, why does this happen so often?

Our guess is fear.

Fear of being perceived as having fewer features than your competitors. Fear that you won't be viewed as complete. Fear that people are making purchase decisions off of a checklist, and that he who has the most features wins (or at the least, that he who has the fewest features definitely loses). Fear of losing key clients who say, "If you don't add THIS... I'll have to go elsewhere."

Be the "I Rule" product, not the "This thing I bought does everything, but I suck!" product.

And I'll be your happy user : )

Posted by Kathy Sierra on June 12, 2005 | Permalink