Ten basic UX principles for creating (or auditing) web pages, with an emphasis on business web page producers, who easily drift into default "we us our" boring sales mode.
1. Mobile friendly
- I can consume the content easily on a small mobile screen
- I can complete navigation and forms on mobile
- I can read any downloads, slideshows, and text in videos on my tiny screen
2. Fast loading
- I do not have a chance to notice the page is loading slow
- I am not downloading MBs of stuff I didn't ask for
3. Clear point
- I know what the page is about
- So that I can judge easily if it matches the reason I came here
- and there is nothing substantially distracting me from getting what I want here
4. Single page view is sufficient
- I can get the main part of what I need from this page only
- I don't need to go to the homepage
- I'll view inner pages, linked from here, if I want to get more info on particular topics
- Since I mainly get what I want from single pages, I don't notice or care if a lot of information is duplicated across many pages of this site
5. Skimmable
- As a person with gnat-like attention powers, I can successfully skim the page and:
a) satisfy myself of the point of the page (3)
b) get the gist of what I want (4)
c) know where to pause or navigate after I've found what I am interested in
d) find pictures and video that spare me the pain of reading text
6. Where next
- It's obvious what I can do next, and how to do it
- I am not paralyzed or confused by multiple calls to action
- Almost always, the main thing I want to do is not "talk to a sales person and buy now"
- (But if I actually want to do that, it is super easy to do it)
- (And all the rest of the time, there is something that helps me with where I am right now)
7. Voice
- It's clear to me who is talking to me from this page
- I can see it's {your brand here} and I can sort of get who they are within my single page (4) skim (5)
- I like a person talking to me rather than a brand
- I like seeing real {your brand here} people and real {your brand here} things
8. Something is memorable
- When a fellow gnat interrupts me and asks watcha lookin at, I know how to summarize what I was looking at because I remember the main point
- Stories are good for this
9. Retrievable
- When I later recall that thing I saw / watched / heard, I know how to find my way back to it
- This might be via a memorable word which is in the page and in the meta title, hence easy to find in my web history or bookmarks
10. Relevant
- The people (7) who produced this page about which I remember this key thing (8) seem like experts to me because they really talk to my...
...interest
...pain
...motivation
...experience
...sense of humour
...fear of missing out
...desire to be more awesome in life
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