/CSS/ Improve your homepage design
23/02/2009 | Filed under Develop > CSS
Craig Grannell explores successful homepages and finds out what makes them tick, from the content shown to the underlying structure and code
Assumption is a dangerous thing, and yet it’s an incredibly common thing for people to do. We assume we know what other people want and what they’re thinking. Web design is no exception, and many designers seemingly consider themselves powerful psychics, second-guessing how an audience is going to use a site, and what they want to see.
In modern web design, the biggest thing designers tend to take for granted is that users already know about a site (what it’s for, what it offers) as soon as they arrive at the homepage, which, on reflection, is nonsensical. However, plenty of websites make you hunt down information about a site’s purpose and owners, like some absurd game of hide the needle in the digital haystack. For big names such as Amazon, this might be considered acceptable, its section titles and shopping basket links making it somewhat obvious what the site’s all about (although some would argue that a couple of lines of text about the site itself wouldn’t go amiss). For most sites, however, there’s a definite need to ensure your homepage provides all the right information for new visitors, and that’s what this month’s column is all about.
Strong homepage design is mostly about getting back to basics, asking the most obvious of questions, and then making damn sure you supply the right answers in the form of available onscreen content. You have to imagine yourself as a user visiting a site blind, for the first time. The two main questions you should be asking are: ‘What is this organisation and what do they do?’ and ‘Where can I see what they’ve done, and what are they currently doing?’.
About the author:
Name: Craig Grannell
Site: www.snubcommunications.com
Areas of expertise: Information architecture, site concepts, graphics, interface and front-end design
Clients: Swim~, Rebellion, IDG
Least-loved household chore Anything that feels like a chore!
Click here to download tutorial PDF
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Comments
Surplus Max / 10/03/2009 / 11:27 / http://www.armyshop24.eu
Thanks for your article - and also MANY THANKS for the tutorial for download. I agree with most points and have done it in a same way on my website. I think a lot of webmaster try to copy the "big-ones" like amazon, otto or neckermann (2 examples from germany) - but they forget, that most users are able to handle this site because they are well known. Webmaster like me (with a small range of customers) must help the users to find what they are looking for and how to handle it. So: Good article!
Sorry for my bad english- my german is better ;o)
Surplus Max
Dave Heath / 13/03/2009 / 22:37 / http://www.childrensbedcentres.co.uk
I totally agree with your suggestions, craig. making life easy for the visitor is something we often have in the back of our minds all along. However, for whatever reason it's always so much harder to impliment than suggest, that's why so many sites fail at this so miserably.
AndyP / 25/03/2009 / 09:43 / http://www.drinkempoium.com
Thanks guys, really interesting artice again. I find some people are getting so tied up in SEO they forget about the physical appearanc of their site - we all want clean lightweight code, but it still needs to look good!
Felix / 29/03/2009 / 22:43 / http://www.webchoiceuk.com
Very good article. In a world of ever changing concepts, sometimes the basics are ignored. Some points like people with big screens may like narrow designs is an eye opener to me. Many thanks.
Juan / 11/03/2010 / 18:23
Very good article :D Totally agreed
