What Kind of Website Makes a Man Want to Tear His Eyes Out?

Have you ever been to a website that is so poorly designed, so hard to understand, and so hard to navigate that you wanted to scream? I have, and if I didn’t absolutely have to be there, I would have left about .016 seconds after I arrived. But because I had to get some information from THAT site and no other, I had to muddle around looking for what I needed.

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid

The major sin in web design is to try to include too much. Web sites aren’t like teddy bears - they won’t collapse if you miss stuffing a spot. White space is as important as content on your page; in fact, I’d dare say it is a necessary piece of content for every page. Make sure to have enough white space.

Some of the best reasons for including white space in a page include the following:

• It emphasizes important points. The object in the middle of a blank area will catch more attention.
• It guides the human eye. People’s eyes aren’t drawn to white space. They are drawn to objects or text. Proper placement of white space will draw visitors’ eyes to important objects. You can practically plot the eye’s course ahead of time when you properly include white space.
• It gives the eye some rest. White space keeps looking at a web page from being so much work.

One more comment - if you feel that you must have all that information on one page, simply make the page larger, and include some anchors and links to move about. Otherwise, move what’s too much to another page.

Clarity

Take-home advice: make it clear what each page is supposed to do. Stick to a page’s purpose, and don’t be tempted to add more.

Pick readable fonts. Don’t hide links in nested menus. Describe what each link will do in the link text.

In short, do everything you can to make it easy for your visitor to understand your site. It won’t matter in the long run whether your site is hip/stylish/cutting-edge if no one stays around long enough to actually look at your site.