Navigating Text

I was asked to do my Basic Usability and Design Analysis on Velnet Web Design yesterday before their site is totally completed, and they said that it would be OK if I shared a few of my findings.

Navigating Text

Right off the bat, I saw something that needed fixing. There is way too much text. What about my site, that’s all it is you say? Well mine is a blog, and you are here to read. Velnet Designs is there to sell, and those looking to buy want quick facts, and an easy method to do so. Here is a possible wake up call to some of you reading this. I am writing a post about their site, did an usability analsyis of their site, and STILL did not read all of the content on the home page. It’s just too much.

So as a visitor how do you navigate all that text. There is bound to be lots of links within it. Usually, when visiting a website, we are used to a link changing color in some way after visiting it. Well in this case clicking the links doesn’t help the visitor.It stays the same color, and when returning to my starting point their are no visual clues of where I have been. In my book this should be the first thing to fix on the site. Make it so the visitor can navigate that text.

Their Forms

If you look at their free ecommerce web design quote form you will see an easy enough form to fill out. What’s slowing down visitors from filling it out though? Dumb stuff. Getting some basic info is important, but knowing the visitors title, or what color scheme they want is really unnecessary. When building a form, get the minimum first. You can fill in the blanks as the relationship continues.

There was also one form missing. The search form! It’s always a good idea to have a search form on your site to help visitors out when your sites navigation fails them.

Web Design

Looking at the UK Web Design page, the reigns need to be yanked on the use of bold or strong. Their lists have the same emphasis as the titles of the lists. Where’s the emphasis there?

No Worries

The beauty is the owner has taken the time to get an analysis before they completed their re-design. They can review all my comments, pick and choose what they want to improve on, and finalize with a clean site. Having an extra set of eyes always helps, and too often webmasters are doing it solo.