Homepage Tips

[stlewis]

I've just been reading 'Homepage Usability' by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir. In the UK, Waterstones have piles of them in a sale at 20.99 GBP.

While you may choose to ignore some of their advice, for many of us most of the guidelines are sensible.

I have re-done my Bricks and Brass homepage. The old one is at www.bricksandbrass.co.uk/index2.html.
The changes are:
- drop the watermark
- change the Title tag to have Bricks and Brass first so that it goes into Favourites in the best place
- remove a lot of the 'Welcome' content - they say it does not make so much sense now people are familiar with the web
- sharpen up the text to make it more active
- put the search at the top right
- put the Site Map in an obvious place
- put a strong tag line near the top of the page
- give fewer choices, sticking to the most important

I have also swapped the colours on my links - I had blue for 'visited' and red for 'not visited' - the wrong way round!

I also need to change the menu so that the current page is not clickable/active. And I need to stop my menu going scrollable for some of the largest areas of the site.

They give lots of other advice; some doesn't apply to me - no splash page, not TOO much on the home page, avoid the word 'links' (use a meaningful word or phrase), avoid frames, avoid confusing duplicate links/menus, design for 800x600 etc.

Any comments?!

www.bricksandbrass.co.uk

[UnHoly]

Cool, sounds like a good book. But when I'm designing Web sites, the rules go out the window. There is only one thing on my mind: Make the Client happy. Sure you can advise them on right and not so right when it comes to the Web. You just have to remember when they're paying you to do the work for them and if you make them happy you've done your job. I do agree with the saying "You've gotta know the rules before you can break them" though and do try to stick to them (most of the time). [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_rolleyes.gif[/img] Good original books are hard to come by and most say the same thing, they just word things a little differently. Just a few of my thoughts on the way to do things. Client VS. rules... Client wins every time over here. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

-Jeff-

[stlewis]

as I'm the client and the designer/developer/writer/graphics artist(!?)/coder/researcher/UncleTomCobbleyandall-er.

But surely a good web person has the communication skills to advise and shift the client.

www.bricksandbrass.co.uk

[gidgit]

Boyo...hmmm...can I agree with both of you?

I agree that the client rules, but I also feel that Simon has a point here...

Say the client wants the page design changed but you know that the changes will lead to more problems than would a slightly different approach... well this is where I agree with Simon in that it is my job to convince the client which is the better way to go... suppose the client does not agree... well, then I have failed my job in some respect... so what do I do at this point? well... I suppose this is where I agree with Unholy in that ya have to do what they insist... just, if things are not up to snuff to my preferences then I would do the work but not put my name on it or include such into my portfolio is all... payday still must come... [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]