Optimising the web

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Optimising the web

Web usage is changing as users and the tools at their disposal mature. This article looks at some of the research on the subject that has emerged during 2006. This looks at how to optimise the user experience when browsing the web

Some suggestions for website owners

Once up a time, marketing had some rules and even though there was as much art as science in the design of their marketing campaigns, these well-paid executives could persuade clients that they knew how to build a corporate image.

Now, these snappy dressers can’t be sure if a web marketing campaign is creating a wonderful image or constructing a pile of intellectual rubble. These are exciting times as the user takes control of the web.

As the web grows and its users mature, browsing patterns are established. The key finding that emerges from every survey is that content is king and people find the content using search engines.

A user quickly perceives if a site has the quality and quantity of content they are seeking. It take a few seconds for them to decide – A browser will decide if they are going to study a page or move on within 4 seconds.

If a user can’t reach where or what they want to be within 30 seconds they will abandon that site or search. So burying information through several screens might be logical but risks loosing the browser.

A search session is typically less than 4 minutes with under 6 pages viewed. When people had to dial-up, they developed the habit of capturing pages, to read off-line at their convenience. This habit of ‘find now – read later’ has persisted.

All studies suggest that a user will email interesting pages to themselves or ‘copy and paste’ it to a document for reading elsewhere or for future reference. Reading on-line is still not popular. Simple facts can be checked online, a weather or traffic report scanned but most serious reading is still done offline and even off screen. This behaviour is referred to as harvesting.

So the message to website owners is to provide ‘deep links’ to get people to the information they are after.

	Design for finding rather than searching.
	Browsers can develop a loyalty to a site but they will no longer rely on a single source for information.
	Site managers know that people are ‘agnostic’ when it comes to a particular site.
	And the information has to be content rich.
	Search engines are getting better at spotting good content.
	But people are the best adverts for sites, especially for the under 30s. The have even coined a term for it - viral marketing.
	Findability is important and the role of the search engines is vital. But once inside the site, navigation takes over.

Because people work in small sessions it makes sense to:

	Adopts a simple layout.
	Use easy to read writing style.
	Limit choices in any one area.
	Structure information to provide relevant entry points and avoid premature bale-out.
	Make information easy to share.

Newsletters are still popular but increasingly sites are using an RSS feed so that those who are interested in your content are alerted when something relevant changes. This is a long way from the idea of the web founders where the date develops some basic sort of intelligence but it is a small step in an interesting direction.