Give 'em What They Want!

In developing your website, it is important to keep in mind that your web site is essentially a document, or series of documents, that your web visitors will be reading. Understand that this is the expectation that they are coming to your website with as well.

Recent readability studies prove that the eye is immediately attracted to text, not pictures or graphics on a web site. This may be bad news for website designers out there who have a penchant for developing very elaborate Flash animations, but it’s good news for you. It saves you the time, trouble and expense of developing such things.

Creativity Killed the Customer
Recently, a web designer (former creative director for an advertising agency) colleague called me up excited to show me a website that he had just developed. When I got to his office and saw his latest masterpiece I was a little concerned. He had indeed developed a magnificent dynamic, database driven web site. Unfortunately at his customer’s request he had also developed a 2 minute long Flash animation. This was the first thing a web visitor encountered when they went to this particular company’s homepage.

I stood there watching this spectacular high-bandwidth display of color and motion, while my friend basked in the glow of his creation. My only thought was how absolutely annoying this was going to be for just about every single web visitor that came to this particular website, with the possible exception of his mom.

I did my best to express my concern to my friend however, it was to no avail. In fact I just went and checked on this “spectaculon” and it’s still there. Fortunately my friend had the good sense to put a “skip-intro” button on the animation. Hopefully this company’s web visitors will find it quickly. Besides being a time waster a flash introduction immediately alienates those web visitors still using low-speed connections, and that’s still quite a few people in the US today!

Words, words, words...
Words are the most powerful communication tool known to mankind and the Internet is the great facilitator of this tool. In his somewhat eclectic, yet enlightened book, The Medium Is the Massage (Bantam Books, 1965), Marshall McLuhan stated, “Western history was shaped…by the introduction of the phonetic alphabet, a medium that depends solely on the eye for comprehension…” “Its use fostered and encouraged the habit of perceiving all environment in visual and spatial terms.” In the words of Yvonne DiVita, book publisher, author and Social Media expert, “Words count! The Right Words Count Double!”

All of the rules of good typography still apply. In this case, the more things change, the more they stay the same. (A quick search on “rules of typography” will produce several sources of information.) Keep this in mind as you develop your web content. As an example, bolded text and subtitles command more attention than pictures or fancy graphics and animations. Other things to think about are, spacing, font size and style… Don’t ignore a large demographic that is flocking to the Internet—baby boomers. Remember that they don’t like small script and they want information up front, top down!

2 Points on Good Web Content
As you develop your web content there are a couple other basic concepts for you to keep in mind. First, Be Brief! In most cases online -- Less Is More. Don’t say in two paragraphs what you can say in ten words. Second, the contents of your web site should reflect the real and measurable benefits that you provide to your customers. In other words, your copy should be about the unique value you provide to your customers and NOT about your marketing ego. The more you can build on your unique qualities, and their benefit to your customers, the better.

Statistics
Several final notes on the development of your web site: It is a known fact that 70% of Internet users will NOT re-visit a graphically rich web site. This most definitely supports the point made earlier that web visitors are coming to a website with an expectation of gathering information, i.e.: reviewing a document. 59% of online shoppers want MORE product information not less. In addition, web site visitors demand speed and gratification. 40% of Internet users will not tolerate web pages that do not load quickly. The eight-second rule still applies – “Capture my interest in eight seconds or I’m gone!”