weisnerlaw's Journal

web design las vegas
Web design las vegas

When a visitor arrives on a website, the site has a very short time to convince that person to stay. If it appears like a muddle, or it's not clear what the site is about, then most likely the visitor will bounce off to somewhere more 'useful' for their purposes.

Web design las vegas - Navigation

The navigation ought to be clear and consistent. Keep in mind the 3 click rule which indicates that any page online should not be more than 3 clicks from the home page. Clarity is key. If the visitor gets lost, the user experience quotient is diminished. There must be a clear visual hierarchy. This means that it should be clear towards the visitor which categories or topics fall into which parent pages. Sometimes this really is difficult when it's not obvious where you can put a topic. But try to make it as intuitive as you possibly can. And always show them the way in which out, that is, also have the home page clickable with a single click from wherever the user is.

The approach is the opposite to the style of casinos in Las Vegas. Here, the way out is signposted as per regulations, but it is not generally obvious. The concept is to keep people wandering around and gambling by making it difficult to leave. This works for casinos but will not work for your website.

The concept of 'visual affordance' is relevant here. This is actually the idea that the visual design of an object (whatever that could be) should give some indication of using it. An example of this would be the shopping cart icon on an ecommerce site. The shopping cart image indicates to users this is where you go to fulfil the purchase.

Web design las vegas - Utility and usability

Do not get confused between your notions of 'utility' and 'usability'. Utility refers to the ability to do plenty of useful things on the site. Usability describes how easy it is for users to actually do those things. Usability shows how likely the user is to actually carry out the desired tasks. Visitors is less likely to create contact if that contact is hard to find. A visitor is less likely to buy if they are interrupted along the purchase path. For ecommerce particularly, once a visitor is involved in the buying process, that process should be pared back to the minimum. Requests for added details will only result in user frustration. And they won't return with no compelling reason.

web design las vegas - Ecommerce

I'll give you an example of a frustrating user experience. I was looking for an iPhone online, for prices and specs and packages. What I got was a telco asking me for my customer no. which of course is buried using the bills that I try not to look at. So they set up an obstacle straight away. Presumably this was to store data about my interests for marketing purposes, but it's the wrong approach.

Web design las vegas - Mobile Interaction

How good does your site look on a mobile browser? When the answer is I don't know because I can not see it properly, then it's time to take action. An increasing amount of the visitors to your site are probably visiting you from mobile devices and this is set to increase further. Even without the a mobile-enabled site or perhaps a site specifically designed for the mobile platform, your visitor is unlikely to have a good experience. Therefore, he is less likely to return and fewer likely to perform the specified action on your site. For those who have a site built with WordPress then you may look at installing a plugin for example WP Touch to render your website in a suitable way.

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