|
Title: |
Web
Design Guidelines |
|
Author: |
Moisés
Daniel Díaz Toledano |
|
Web: |
|
|
Email: |
moises@moisesdiaz.com |
Web Design Guidelines.
Internet
is a media so much rich in possibilities like in containing. The
competitiveness that exist in the net of nets is enormous due, between many
reasons, to the relative small investment that its required to create a
website. A hard (difficult) navigation could make us therefore lose a big
amount of our possible clients-users. If we add to this that the construction
of a website is carried out with languages that facilitate an enormous
flexibility, we could see the great importance that has to specify some design
principles or guidelines for the development of our webs.
·
Fitts' Law. This is practically the only rule not
subjective that is established inside the interfaces design field and it makes
reference to the characteristics that have to have the objects so we can press
them (or rather, to interact with them): position in which they are, size of
the same, and an additional characteristic, the 'expresivity' of them. I want
to making understanded with this last concept that an object will be more
'visible' (as for the interaction with the user) if this insinuates or express
their existence like interface's object and not like mere information. An
example is the change that suffer certain web links when we are above of them
with the pointer of the mouse (for example changing its color). You could think
that all the aforementioned for the Fitts' Law is absolutely evident, and in
fact generally it is, but it is still more surprising the great amount of times
that these principles are not applied, achieving therefore that the usability
of our interface is clearly committed (worsening the usability of our
interface).
·
Give feedback to the user. There are many cases in
which an action of the user implies modifications in the application that don't
have a visual correspondence to show to the user, and if this change exists It
doesn't give any information about the executed action. Imagine that we connect
with a website suggestions page, and upon completing the whole information that
requests us and sending it, this page appears again empty or perhaps we are
returned to the main page of saying website. The user would not know if the
suggestion has been receptioned, or if what really happened is that the page
was bad programmed and upon pressing the button for shipping it load the same
form again (or another). Giving return information to the user about the
actions that carries out is a fundamental point in web design, and It is
forgotten in too much occasions. Fortunately in the web world, the main action
carry out by users is pressing web links and downloading files, both of them
have immediate consequences. Giving feedback to user is a secure way to get
consistent applications and high usability.
·
User's experience reutilization. It consists of expose
the user in the face of the acquaintance. At this moment It is proliferating
the use of certain elements that give to the web much flexibility and wealth
(like Flash). In this interfaces seem to prevail the visual effect, and the
realization of all type of stylistic twirls on the ease of use, succeeding in
confusing the user. In the web environment is particularly little reasonable to
create interfaces that require excessive learning cuves since any difficulty
presented to users produces a considerable loss of users, that increases
competition's visits(don't forget the enormous proliferation that has lived and
it will continue living the creation of all type of websites). The use of not
standard browsing structures is one of the most serious error that we could
make. We should also know that certain exceptions are plenary justified how
they are the creation of websites in which prevail the form to the content or
in which competition hardly exists. Under my point of view if there is an
important point in the web desing development is in fact this, so we must to
have it always present.
·
Uses of the Scroll. It is a good idea to make all
browsing elements and important information showed to the user nothing else
they loaded our pages without needing to make [scroll]. In this way, we made
sure that important information is always exposed to all our clients-users.
·
Sentences and paragraphs. The great majority of the
users reads the minimum and indispensable text of our web in order to obtain
that they are looking for . Including long sentences and big paragraphs hinder
this activity, loosing usability (and therefore visits!!). Evidently we could
not apply the previously said to documents in html format, they are already
articles, books, etc. Nevertheless I think that exists a tendency that is going
to be consolidating, and it is the idea of differentiating between what it is
the own web application (objects' set that allow us for communicating with the
server) and everything else that we obtain as a result of the interaction with
this application. This posture introduces a conceptual wealth differentiating
between application and information, having numerous advantages. On the other
hand it introduce a serious inconvenience (that it could be argument more than
enough in order to discard it) and is that we need an additional program for
the reading of the obtained documents (for example the Adobe Acrobat Reader)
that generally implies more requirements to the user (and this is accustomed to
almost always go in decrementing the number of visits!!). Knowing our possible clients
it is a fundamental point to the hour of taking these decisions of design.
·
Images. Due to the limitations of the width of band
are not very advisable load our pages excessively with images, and if we must
to do ti, a very interesting technique consists in creating thumbnails (images
of very reduced size that upon pressing opens another window in which the
original image is loaded). In general in the thumbnails is shown the enough
information so that an user decides if it is useful obtain the original image
or not.
·
Band's Width. The web universe offers many interactive
and multimedia possibilities but it is necessary to be conscious that many
users have a small band width and that they therefore could need a big amount
of second in loading our pages. The economy, and the simplicity continues being
capital importance norms in web design.
Conclusions.
Like
conclusion I would like to stand out some of the principles previously exposed,
most of they are of easy understanding and conception, but with too much
frequency we forget them , so keep in mind: user's experience reutilization,
make easy that the user use the interactuable objects (bellboy, connections,
[etc]), and don't overload your pages excessively.
References.
·
Web design and Usability, http://www.usability.gov/guidelines/.