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Optimus01 SEO / Designing User Friendly Websites
Designing User Friendly Websites

User friendly websites need to be designed in a simple, clean and easy to use design. Here is how you can design a user friendly website.

 It is all good and well designing a website that is aesthetically pleasing and in demand of some kind of award. As pretty as your website is, it will all be in vain if your website is impossible and annoying to use. If your clients are unable to navigate around your website and acquire all the information they are after, they will become frustrated and quickly move on to another more manageable and friendly website. Here are some tips to consider when developing a user friendly website, these helpful tips will increase profits, hits and your reputation in the industry. To further better your chances of a faultless website, allow Optimus01 to do it for you.

Pages Should be Uncluttered and Not too Busy
If there is too much going on in terms of pictures, text and illustrations, this your users will quickly click out of the chaos. User friendly websites are easy to navigate and easy to find exactly what your client is after. Let's face it; no one has time to sift through heaps of information that is irrelevant. Your website should be clean and tidy as well as easy to use in terms of finding the information you are looking for.

Creating a Visual Hierarchy
It is important that you assist your viewers as much as possible in finding all the important information. This can be accomplished by using big, bolded headings to direct your customers to the most important information. This also makes it easy for the customer to use your website and skim to find exactly what they are after. An example of this includes headings like "About Us", "How We Can Help You" and "Contact Us". Another useful tip to include in designing your website is to put the most important information near the top of your web page. Also remember to form content relationships. This means that you should try to display similar visual content styles together or in a clearly defined area. An example includes having a box for samples of your work, articles all similar in topic or perhaps a box for "Previous Happy Customers" to leave their comments and experiences.

The Areas of a Webpage should be Clearly Defined
There is nothing worse then clicking on a link that promises one thing and then takes you to something irrelevant. An example of this is clicking on a link and landing up at an advert. Be sure to clearly show your viewer all the different things on your site without them clicking onto something that has nothing to do with the original search. Let them know exactly where they are going and what is available by using different defined areas for content, adverts and pictures, this will make your site more user friendly.

Links
It is important to make clickable links obvious so that your website is easy to use and navigate. If they stand out they will grab the reader's attention and show that there is more information available. It is important to make them stand out by underlying them and changing their colour. The standard colour is blue, but you are able to change this to suit the design of your website. It is also important that the colour of the link changes once it has been opened and explored. This will make your website more user friendly as the readers will know that they have already seen this information.

More Tips for Making your Website User Friendly

  • Your website should load quickly.
  • It should be easy to navigate. Remember to keep it simple.
  • It should have useful information.
  • Use reasonable sized fonts. Backgrounds should be clean and not fussy.
  • Use white space to logically group related items on the page.
  • Text should be concise and scannable.
  • Break long pages into multiple pages.
  • The site colours, layout and text needs to be consistent throughout the website.
  • Avoid using jargon on a page, if no one else will understand it.
  • Make the internet users life as easy as possible.
  • Content should be written and focused on the user and product.
  • Your website should be scannable and skimmable.
  • Create a clear site map to make it easy to navigate and explore the website.
  • Your site visitors should know exactly where they are, so be sure to put you company name or logo on every page of your website. It is also a good idea to allow your viewers to go back to the home page by clicking on the logo.
  • Avoid using distracting graphics like blinking, spinning and flashing boxes and other illustrations.
  • It is important that each page on your website has a purpose.
  • Ensure that your web pages fit perfectly on a computer screen instead of having to move the navigation bars up and down and left and right.
  • Make it easy to find information, like contact us, costs and other important information.
  • Never underline any text that is not a link.
  • Be sure to have browser compatibility. This means that you need to ensure that your website looks good and is readable on a variety of different browsers.
  • Don't make your website too high-tech, when designing a website be sure to keep the unsure users in mind.

Websites Should be Clean, Informative and User Friendly
Your wonderful and techno-savvy website design will be in vain if you don't consider those who are new to the world of the internet. Follow and consider these helpful hints when designing a user friendly website. These tips promise more hits, income and interest in your website and company.

 

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We have used various companies in Johannesburg and Cape Town over the years for our BushBreaks SEO & website work.  Optimus01 are by far the best and are not only increasing our volumes of business but also offer an extremely professional service. Alison van Deventer 

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