13. Smart cookie
Is it obvious what your buttons and links are? Is there a pattern thoughout your site? How is your visitor going to react if even you don’t know where to go next?
Taking the time to spit-polish your buttons and make them as clear and legible as possible will win the customer over, promise. Even your mum’ll be proud.
A Smart Jacket Needs Smart Buttons
Don’t re-invent the wheel when it comes to designing buttons, unless there is a very, very good reason to do so. Yes, for the experienced web user, rolling a mouse over a word or an image will reveal whether something is clickable (the cursor will change from an arrow to a pointing hand), but why make the user, your customer or reader, think about it? Make it as obvious as possible that a button is a button. Of course diversification is good, and your design or concept for buttons may eventually supersede the existing industry standard, but probably not. Don’t place more barriers in front of the user; use the tools that they are familiar with, in the style that they are familiar with. Buttons can still end up being funky – between colour options, shadowing, rollover graphics and sound effects, yours can be a novel approach without having to re-educate.
A Chain Is Only As Strong As The Weakest Link
It doesn’t stop with buttons either. If a link is a link, shout about it. Don’t be too subtle and expect users to hunt around the page for something to shoot at with their trigger finger (there are specialist sites for that); the mouse is a weapon and we’re all very keen to rifle our way through your site, so let us. For example, if your base text is in black, highlight links in, say, blue and those that you have already clicked on in pink. Net result – you can scan the page quicker, take in the information and immediately know where you want to go to next. If I am still here hunting for an escape route I will be quickly losing my goodwill and patience with your site.
This is a point often overlooked in the design of a web site and more often than not goes back to an oversight on behalf of the developer. Whilst the murky red/brown/purple of a link previously used does injure the aesthetics of a web page, a used link should still be highlighted in a different colour. Users like and need to know where they have travelled before during that session (even if it might appear obvious to you). ‘Tricking’ them into re-visiting the same place again, even if unintentionally, will leave them frustrated and possibly angry with your site – a reaction that is hardly going to inspire them to buy or read much more. Used links for many users act like waypoints, ‘This is a site I am unfamiliar with, here is a new page, but I can already see that I have visited some of the links before.’ Familiarity with your site sets in and the customer feels free to continue surfing without fear of treading over old ground or fear that the little trail of breadcrumbs is going to be eaten up – leaving them stranded and alone, and far more likely to return to a web site that’s more like home in Kansas and less like a gingerbread house in the woods inhabited by a cannibalistic witch…
Conventional sites don’t have to be boring. Your site can still offer something different in terms of layout, use of colours and ‘value-added’ celebrity names or endorsements, sound, images and writing style. But a link should always look like a link – a device that is clickable. There must be a nav bar somewhere apparent and you must offer the user the chance to ‘escape’ back home, available on every page, should they wish.
If your web site is an e-commerce store, then as well as offering users the chance to return home at any stage, the same must be said for offering them the chance to purchase by showing the shopping basket or cart icon on every page. This should make complete commercial sense, but you would be surprised at how many e-commerce sites don’t keep the shopping basket as a permanent feature at the top of the page.
How did it go?
Q. Our site is text based rather than product based, and links are used to explain definitions rather than to sell items. What’s wrong with this approach?
A. This is fine, but is it clear that you can click on specific words to find out their definition? If not, add instructions at the top of the page to explain this facility.
Q. We saw most of the important links in the two seconds, so what’s the problem?
A. The problem is this – what is important to you is not necessarily what is important to your user. Let them decide what their priority is and give each link a chance!
Q. Our developer says we should use text-based buttons rather than graphics. Are they right?
A. Yes. Clever developer! Text-based buttons load faster and are easier to alter and add to, should you need to. The same rules apply, however. Make sure your text-based buttons are obviously clickable and the buttons visited leave a trail.
Here is an idea for you…
Choose a random page on your web site and count as many links as you can in two seconds. Now look at the same page in your own time and count how many links there really are. Which links came to your attention first, and why? Chances are they were highlighted in bold, or a different colour. Look at fixing the remaining links.
Choose a competitor or large e-commerce site and run the same exercise on their homepage. Are you able to spot more links in the two seconds? If you can, you’ve got it wrong and they will win customer loyalty; if you can’t, then you already have competitive advantage.
Defining idea…
‘Only a fool doesn’t judge by appearances.’
Oscar Wilde