Site Emphasis

Jan 272009
 

Time for part 2 of 35 covering my usability and design analysis, Site Emphasis.

Typically, when designing a website, there should be a desired action or purpose of site. Everything should be geared to get the visitor to achieve that action or purpose, and surprisingly this is easier said than done. This is because we are all victims of what I like to call the Entropy Factor.

Entropy

Entropy on a website is similar to how a physics instructor would describe it. It is simply a measure of the disorder of a system. With websites, two common enemies create entropy, time and lack of a defined purpose. When I check a websites emphasis, I am really looking at it’s level of entropy. Is it staying on topic? Does it have a clear purpose? Are their too many distractions? Will the visitor be able to find what they are looking for? Has the level of entropy become so disorienting, that it will most likely fail a visitor?

Everything Confirms

I was recently asked to take a look at this home loan site. I have been getting a lot of these lately, and I thought it would use it as a good example of low entropy, high site emphasis. Notice how the logo, the introduction message, and the menu items all compliment the sites purpose.

ontopic

The website is all about getting a better rate. They offer advice on how to find better rates for various financial resources. The message is clear, and depending on what kind of rate you are trying to improve, it’s a simple one click on the menu to be on topic. Looking below the main introduction, the home page only compliments the topics more by offering descriptions of the menu items. This is often where many webmasters get messed up.

Avoid the Entropy

Most webmasters can achieve this type of clarity with the logo and menu, but then they always seemed compelled to introduce the entropy.

  • They slap in ads that could be off topic, and at least off site
  • They give visitors too much information on the home page
  • The offer links, blogrolls, or other non valuable information in regards to their site
  • They simply remove focus by adding too much content

Another way to understand it is to think about the red text scenario. Imagine a sales page with red text everywhere. The person that created the page is yelling at you all over the site, “Look here, look here, no look here”.  Add too much red text, and its emphasis on the most important item is lost.

Staying Well Tuned

Another important factor to keep your site well tuned is to make sure the site continues it’s layout, and its site emphasis throughout the site. Don’t confuse your visitors with alternate design themes or alternate messages. Make it easy to get back to the home page, and make it easy for them to navigate so they know where they are at all times. Looking at the home loan site again, and at one of their internal pages, Rate Updates, you can see that everything is as you would expect it. The layout is the same, it has the same menu, and the page title matches the menu items text. The only thing you can find on this rates page, with exception to one Google ad, is articles about interest rates. No surprises, and desired content revealed. They are staying on topic, and keeping the visitor happy.

Site Emphasis

Looking at the example I gave you I’m sure you are thinking that this is a little obvious, but take a look at your own site. I would bet you will find many distractions, and a level of entropy bordering on high. It’s easier said than done, and knowing what is a distraction and what offers real value can often be difficult to decide. Here is a good reason to do ongoing usability testing, and another reason to really study your analytics.

Where to Look

Jul 222008
 

I always like keeping a site focused. I also always like simple navigation. When picking a layout for this site I was tempted by the three column layout that is common with blogs, but I decided it was just too much. It may initially feel limited to me when adding new content, but it forces the navigation to do the work, not the visitor.

menus

Here is a fairly new classified site that is suffering from growing pains, Encuentra.com. Time, and quick growth often creates sites full of add-ons. Just from the small screen shot I made here has six different menu locations. There are a great deal more if you continue looking at the rest of the page.

What happens to the visitor? Well, unless they are a regular, it may be difficult to know where to start. There is countless directions they could go, and I am betting, will often lead them down the wrong path.

Looking at this classified site I could imagine the owner would respond with “But I need all that stuff there.” Well, maybe you do. So how do you fix it? You consolidate. In this particular case you could easily delete menu 1-3, and just move those items in the left column under menu 4. This could make that left column very long so to avoid that you put your navigation to work. Menu 5 could easily be just one item, “My Account”. When the visitor goes to that page, the additional features that were in the menu are now listed on the My Account page. Menu 3 and 4 are filled with duplicate links that can be found elsewhere on the page. Delete the duplicates. The more time I spend looking at this site the more I realized that the menu could have very easily been reduced to just one simple menu on the left.

All of this boils down to one of my favorite posts, The Entropy Factor. Controlling the craziness of a site begins day one, and it will continue to a vicious battle. Pull your weeds, keep your site focused, and make it easy for your visitors to know where to look. Beside just reading this post take the time to look at the site, and imagine how you could re-organize. I’m sure you will find it takes little effort to consolidate the menu items.

The Entropy Factor

Jun 192008
 

I’m a subscriber to Scientific American. I recently read a great article titled “The Cosmic Origins of Time’s Arrow” by Sean M. Carrol. It’s on page 48 of their June 2008 issue. The author nicely described entropy as “a measure of the disorder of a system”. It’s an article about the universe, time, and our perception of it. While reading the article though, I couldn’t stop thinking that it was an article about building websites.

Give It a Little Time

Most sites grow with time. Throw a few extra webmasters into the mix, and you could have a real mess. Things change, you get new ideas, promotions come and go, the list goes on. Unless you have the occasional site makeover, things can get especially crazy on the back end. All these things are victims of time, and the amount of disorder is the entropy factor. More time, most likely higher entropy. For a website, you want low entropy.

The Big Bang

So you have a wonderful idea, you register your domain, and start building your new website. This is the time to enjoy because the entropy factor is as low as it is going to get. Your site is simple, it’s easy to edit, and it is very focused on that brilliant idea you just had.

Time Moves On

In the cosmic world, gravity is the major mover of the stars, but in the world of web development it’s the author of the site controlling the stars. The slightest new feature can change your sites entropy, and it can be effected by as something as one small post on your blog.

Imagine a farmer with a new blog. He decides to write his first post about his favorite type of tractor. The blog software asks for the category to place the article in, and since it’s the first, he creates a tractor category. He now has a blog with just one article. It now has a new category, Tractors, and it also has a nice new void, all things not tractors. Add a little more time, and there could be several categories, and potentially several sub-categories. Entropy level increasing, and more for the visitor to figure out.

Quick Chaos Without Gravity, Entropy High

Now imagine that same farmer who likes to blog, as a man with a tie instead of a straw hat. His site hits it big time, and turns out to be the most popular farmer resource on the net. There is his blog, a busy forum, a store, advice section, weather services, and so on. His site has rapidly expanded, and as you could imagine so has the level of chaos. Does the site have a high entropy level now? Not necessarily. The level of chaos might be high for the man in charge, but if the site is done correctly, it will have strong gravitational (navigational) pulls. With solid navigation, and clear paths for the visitors to take, the level of entropy can at least seem reasonably low. It all depends on how the sites content has been controlled by navigation.

Depending on the site, high entropy might just be the facts of life. Microsoft’s site, and their services would be a classic example of high entropy with high gravity. Using Sean Carroll’s article as a reference, I would even guess Microsoft has a few black holes, and some that have even evaporated away. Thousands upon thousand of web pages, all interlinking, some you may never see even if you tried.

Controlling Entropy

A site that is growing is usually a good indication of good health. Unfortunately, this means an increase level of entropy. So how do you control it? Avoid the big bang. When you start your site, be forced to add new levels of complexity, don’t start with it. Limit your menu items to the least required, and keep navigation simple. Using this technique a natural method of navigation will create itself. New content will easily be grouped and categorized, and new visitors will easily follow your lead. The entropy factor will still be increasing, but now you at least know one way on how to slow it down.

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