Where the Heck is it?
September 10th, 2008 by John RheaSo, I moved last weekend and now, the only thing I can find in my house is boxes. That got me thinking about
how difficult it is to find information on some Web sites. At best, it’s frustrating for the user and at worst, it gives them a poor view of your company. But, there are a few things you can do to help users navigate your site.
1. Make navigation headings clear, concise, and descriptive. But, you just said be concise, how can I be concise and descriptive? Use strong words that communicate rather than words that could mean almost anything. Just like moving, it’s easier to find something in a box when the box is well labeled.
2. Role play. Pretend you are a customer and try to find some pertinent piece of information using only navigation headings. (For double points, count how many clicks it took you to find it). If you can’t find it, how’s your customer ever going to?
3. Get someone outside your company to review the site. Who knows less about your company than a new client? See what that person says, but take it with a grain of salt. What did or didn’t work for them might be different for another person.
4. Take giant categories and break them into smaller, more refined categories. Make it easier for someone to find the content they’re looking for by making the boxes smaller. It’s easier to search a shoe box than it is to search a refrigerator box.
5. Put tiny categories together into larger categories. This and #4 are a balancing act. Breaking everything into small categories gives you a jabillion categories and makes it harder for a user to find the information, but only having two categories creates refrigerator boxes.
Happy Moving!
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