You might guess by the title of this post that it is about using your mouse and navigation. It is, but really, it’s about barfing on your customer. I didn’t think barf in a title was a very good idea. I was in sales a long time, and barfing on your customer simply meant, you overloaded them with too many things to consider. The same thing happens all of the time to websites, and it can get to the point that it can even confuse the person in charge of the site.

With permission from the site owner, I have been allowed to use iGeneric as an example. Their site is not quite ready yet. They are still in the process of uploading thousands of scripts to their site, and some final layout testing. IGeneric is going to be a large UK Software Directory. It will also include a large PHP web scripts directory. They will have premium and free scripts, and will have something for most types of programming scripts besides PHP.

So what is up with their site, and what does barfing on a customer have to do with it?

Navigation

First you need to look at their navigation from the home page. With close inspection you will notice that they have two main menus. This could easily be reduced to just one. With some closer inspection, here are some examples.

• Menu #1 has Login link, though right underneath to the right is a login form. This menu is only availbable on the home page so they could delete that.
• Menu #1 User Panel link takes you to a login page so this could be eliminated until at least the user has logged in.
• Menu #2 has a logout link though I am not logged in.
• Menu #2 has a Categories link though all the categories are listed right below.
• Non popular items like “Support” are already listed in the footer menu, and could be deleted.

Adding a little more finesse those two menus could easily be condensed to just one. It will create less confusion to the visitors, and will also bring their premium content, the scripts, closer to the top making it easier for visitors to find. One menu, less confusion, the customers shirt will now remain clean.

Mouse Work

The final thing is the mouse work. First let me ask you this. Would you rather click ten times to find something with your mouse, or would you rather click five times, and scroll five times to find the same thing? Just clicking ten times is faster, and studies have found that just clicking is what most people would rather do. So in the case of this site, creating sub-categories might be the way to go. Their category listing is pretty huge, and knowing how people often categorize things (not how we expect it), it may be difficult to find what you are looking for. Having more broad categories can at least eliminate some obvious choices. It will also eliminate the dreaded scroll. So in this case, a little reorganizing and adding some sub-categories could drastically improve user performance.

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