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Web Design Weekly Archives

Content vs. Navigation
Which is more important?
By Chris Collins, Lead Editor, 6/1/04

When designing a site, content is king. You should design a site around the site's content. However, if you have great content and poor navigation, your content is useless, if users can't find it. If you have great navigation and poor content, users will leave if they can't find anything useful.

So which is more important: content or navigation?

Well, they are both equally important, for the reasons stated above. To make good navigation, focus on getting users to the content as quickly as possible, and show them other choices of content if they are not interested. Good content depends on the purpose of your site.

Writing for the Web
By Chris Collins, Lead Editor, 6/7/04

Writing for the Web is something all Web designers should learn. When writing for the Web, keep things short and simple. Here are some hard facts on the way users react to text written not for the Web:

Users scan text – they don't read it. This is usually because users simply just don't have time to read the text.
Users hate large blocks of text. They are hard to scan and are generally paragraphs and paragraphs of fluff.

The key to writing good content for the Web is to leave out the fluff. (For those who don't know what fluff is – it's unnecessary writing that has little or no significance to the main topic.) Make sure users get the good stuff quickly. Otherwise, they'll leave. Another thing – users hate ALL CAPS TEXT. It is hard to scan, and hard to read. Also, try not to underline text, because some users confuse underlined text and links. When publishing your content on the Web, be sure to choose a readable font. Don't choose cursive; it is hard to scan. Even the (usual) default font Times New Roman doesn't have great on – screen readability (it gives good readability on paper, however). Instead, choose something like MS Sans – Serif (the font this is written in), Arial (not Arial Narrow), Verdana, or Helvetica.

Making Good Use of the <title> tags
By Chris Collins, Lead Editor, 6/14/04

The title of your site is more important than most people think. It is displayed in search engine listings, and in some peoples' Favorites or Bookmarks list. When users review search results, they scan the listed site titles. If a title is uninteresting, they will skip it. If that title is yours, then you have a lost visitor.

Let's say a visitor comes to your site (the title being "Welcome to my site! www.coolsite.com") , likes it, and bookmarks it. When they go to their bookmark list, they search and search but can not find your site. Finally he/she finds it, hidden way down at the bottom of the list, under W. What's wrong with your title?

Well, since your title started with "Welcome" it was categorized under "W". If the site title began with "The", it would be under "T". A good title for the site would be "CoolSite – A site with cool free stuff!". In the new title, users know what to expect of the site, and it would be properly categorized under "C".