Why Redesigns are Necessary

I’m currently in the early stages of redesigning a local newspaper’s website. I’ve been compiling statistical information such as the most trafficked pages and what time of day is the busiest and also where users are clicking on each page. Crazyegg.com allows me to log click activity and compile that information into something useful.
What I’ve noticed is that while the home page has links to almost all of the current edition’s articles, very few people users are venturing past the page fold. Also, over 60% of the clicks occurring on the home page are on four links.

In my eyes, this is the perfect example of why this website needs to be redesigned. This website has had this layout since 2005. The users have grown accustomed to its layout and have learned the fast way to get to the exact content they want. This is fine, as designers we want our users to be able to get to their destination with as little hassle as possible, but in this situation, I can’t help but think that so much content is being ignored because users see no need in scrolling down or even visiting the left side of the page.

Here’s a few quick points when redesigning your own website(s):

• Spread out the most popular links
  Spreading out the most popular links will draw attention to other sections of a page and hopefully get your users more involved with other offerings you already provide.
• Move the search box closer to an area you really want to emphasize.
  The search box is easily the most sought after element on a page. Placing it close to specific section of your page is a simple and effective way to attract attention.
• Move content up.
  The closer your content is to the top of the page, the more important it appears to your users. If there is something you want to draw attention to, move it above the page fold.

I’d love to hear how you prepare for a redesign. Here’s a screen capture of the entire crazyegg heatmap test.

Great Mobile Testing Website

So I’m reading through Cameron Moll’s book Mobile Web Design, which I love by the way, and came across a few mentions of Ready.mobi. So I thought I would check it out. Read more

Book Review: Mobile Web Design

You’ve probably seen many reviews on Cameron Moll’s book Mobile Web Design around recently. I thought I’d add my own.

I purchased Cameron’s book on Wednesday and have been thumbing through it off and on. I find it extremely enlightening. Not only is the book well written, he provides links to some very informative pages about mobile standards and good mobile design practices. I’ve added quite a few new feeds to my reader after reading this book. Read more

Flash on Top of Flash

At work we just implemented a ‘Corner Peel’ Flash Advertisement. You can view an example over at the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. I had a problem when putting this ‘Corner Peel’ flash ad onto the home page, you see we run a handful of advertisements of various sizes throughout our website. One of those being a leaderboard ad (728 x 90 px). When the corner peel is ‘peeled back’ it lays on top of the leaderboard.

When I saw this for the first time, the leaderboard advertisement was a flash ad and was laying on top of the corner peel ad and thus looked very funny. This little problem caused me quite the headache today. I thought I’d show you the little trick that saved me an even bigger headache. Read more

Digg for Designers

Recently I’ve been coming across a lot of great articles that have been submitted to Design Float. Design Float is a digg-style social news site, but with a niche. I’ll let them tell you about it:

The ultimate goal of Design Float is to, hopefully, categorize the huge amount of design-related content available on the web into neat and easy to navigate pages of articles in order of importance/relevance as decided by the community.

Great Wordpress Resource

I ran across an extremely large Wordpress resource today. Over at Mashable.com they’ve compiled a list of 300+ Tools for Running Your Wordpress Blog. This is a great resource of plugins and templates to extend Wordpress way beyond its initial intention.

Great Website for Freelancers

I stumbled across this site for freelance designers and have been enjoying it ever since. I really love the layout as well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Read more

Design by Committee

Designing a website for a corporation can be troublesome. The term “design by committee” comes into play quite frequently. Don’t get me wrong, getting feedback on a design is very helpful, and I would argue, a necessity, but when there is a handful of directors, managers and editors telling you how it should look, that’s when the problems start. Read more

Designing a Mobile Version of Your Website

I’m a baseball fan. Specifically a San Francisco Giants fan. Yes, I know they are horrible this year, but that’s what makes me a real fan…I don’t care if they win or lose. One sentence in to this post and I’m already off topic.

MLB.com has a mobile website that, in my opinion, is one of the best and most useful mobile sites around. Today I’m going to dissect there mobile home page and tell you exactly why I think this site is so great. Read more

Safari on Windows!

Its official! Apple has released a beta version of their web browser, Safari.

This is an exciting time for web designers married to their windows boxes, myself included. Safari is, in my opinion, the fastest rendering modern browser available. Not to mention the first of only a handful of browser to pass the Acid2 Browser Test.

Today is a good day!

apple, safari, beta, windows

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