By Kerri Riley
SPINdesign

You have been tasked with building - or, more likely, rebuilding - your company's web site. What will it take to make it effective? What elements should you include to capture the attention and interest of more users? How can you make your web site one that will turn casual visitors into repeat users?

Making it simple and easy for a customer to get the information they want, when they want it is the ultimate requirement for a successful web site. That means your web site must deliver functionality with usability.

The functionality of a web site is dictated by the outcome expected. Over the years, much effort has gone into the design and programming of incredibly sophisticated and useful backend functions. Are you selling books or furniture on-line? Your backend programming must support the act of shopping and purchasing. Is your web site informational in nature? A robust database program is probably at the heart of your site. Is yours a large and complex site? Your search function must be powerful enough to support a users need to locate specific information.

But to be truly effective these complex backend functions must be made seamless to users. No matter what the ultimate function of your site, the most critical element is what users see and do when your web site appears on their computer screen. Web users don't just view information ­ they interact with it.

That's why a balance must be struck between powerful backend functions and interface design that brings a user willingly into the web site.

Design of the graphic user interface (GUI) is the key to how users interact with your site. The graphic user interface gives people control over their computers, using words and images to convey function and meaning on the computer screen, producing the characteristic "look and feel" of web pages. Graphic design and visual graphics are not just used to make web pages interesting, but are an integral part of the user's experience with your site.

It is impossible to separate graphic design from issues of interface design. Most of what we know about structuring information comes from the organization of printed materials. The "interface standards" of books and periodicals have been well established over the centuries. We all know pretty much what to expect when we pick up a book or magazine.

Web-based documents are undergoing a similar - though much more rapid - evolution. Still, design for the web is not so radically different from current practices in print design that the flexibility inherent in web page design should be allowed to overshadow the basic standards of graphic design.

Perhaps the most important design principle for the web is that of "visual hierarchy." A logical and appealing graphical layout can help guide web site users into prioritizing their tasks. Visual clues in the form of clear, consistent icons and graphic identity schemes steer users in the right direction. This builds the user's confidence that they can find what they are looking for without getting lost or wasting precious time.

The electronic equivalent of "white space," the principle of "subtractive design" reduces on screen clutter and allows users to focus on the reasons they are visiting the site. Extraneous graphics are avoided, allowing the users eye to flow naturally to those graphic elements which will allow the user to move further into the site and toward their ultimate goal.

Another key web design canon is that of "affordance." When users can easily determine the action that should be taken with a graphic object, the object displays good affordance. For example, a navigation button that begs the user to "press here" shows good affordance that mimics a real world object.

What about an exit strategy? A good site design always leaves an easy "out" for users, and provides a "safety net" against errors. Users should be able to easily return to your home page, and to other important navigation points in your site. In addition, it is helpful to include a "breadcrumb trail" so that users know where they have been and where they might go next. (An example of a breadcrumb trail might be: HOME > ABOUT THE COMPANY> PRODUCTS > ORDER FORM. Each of these is a link forward or back to logically connected pages.)

Return links should be present on every page of your site as graphic buttons that let the user know that they are still within your site domain. There should be no "dead end" pages without options to move forward or back - every web page should include at least one link.

As web site users have grown more numerous and more sophisticated, they have also come to expect a higher level of design from web sites. Users equate poor site design with poor organization, and are apt to avoid web sites that do not compel immediate attraction. Therefore it is important to meet the needs and expectations of your potential users. You can't design for an unknown person whose needs you don't understand. Research on the needs and demographics of your web site's target audience is vital in order to effectively develop a user profile, which in turn will provide you with a "living" personification of potential users.

By staying true to proven design principles, you can build a functional site with robust backend programming that still delivers what the user expects in terms of simplicity and ease of use.


Kerri Riley is a Project Manager with SPINdesign, a Gloucester,
Massachusetts-based web site design and development firm. Ms. Riley can be
reached by phone at (978) 281-1200, or via e-mail at: kriley@spindesign.net.