stormdamage.org - Art, Webdesign and CSS.

Though it is easy to criticise sites that are somewhat lacking in design smarts, not enough attention is paid to the opposite problem – overdesign.

Though it may seem logical to highlight important information on your site, overdo it and you could put off your users. If they see a panel which tries a little too hard to grab your attention, they could assume it’s an advert and ignore it completely.

This is illustrated beautifully by Jakob Neilsen, who uses the US Census Bureau website as an example to show how easily this can happen. Although the site has the US population in large red letters, when users were asked to find it, 86% would miss it entirely, assuming it was an advert.

Another example to illustrate the overdesign problem is the website of Boots the Chemist:

The site’s main content is made up of variously coloured, attention grabbing panels, which are likely to be ignored by the user. The large numbers in bright red font also add to the problem.

Many designers forget to suggest a clear workflow through their sites, and I think is especially true of the Boots site. Not content with one navigation bar they have four, all competing for the user’s attention.

When a user visits a site, they are quite likely to be looking for key information. A store locator perhaps, or opening hours, products, pharmacy information, etc. With some thought, this could all be condensed into one clear navigation tree, rather than being scattered around the page in a tiny font. The left hand column looks especially squashed, attempting to pack too much information into a small space.

The buttons at the bottom are quite a nice way of navigating; they are clear, simple and not overstyled. But they are lost at the bottom of the page where the user is unlikely to look first for information. Instead, the entire site gives the impression of information overload, which encourages the user to go straight for the search box.

It becomes easy to see the appeal of minimalist design, keeping the menus, colours and panels as pared down as possible. But this needn’t be at the expense of visual appeal. A common-sense balance can achieved by keeping these simple pointers in mind:

• Limit the number of panels on the page. Especially if they are all different colours.
• Avoid over-highlighting numbers – text is far more user-friendly.
• Keep the menus simple, and as few as possible.
• Limit font styles, colours and other formatting.
• Minimise the use of animated banners and flashing text.
• Avoid jargon and keep headings simply worded.

Really, we need to keep in mind what our users want to do, not what we want our users to do. By highlighting too many ‘important’ sections the workflow is lost, and our users with it.

Tags: formatting, layouts, usability