Web Best Practices
A brief overview by James Buratti
University Webmaster
Does anyone really use my
website?
▪ First and frequent point of contact for many
of your customers.
▪ How many? University websites hosted
under http://www.txstate.edu/--- in the
spring of 2006 processed 15,701,410 pages!
▪ A digital generation expects they can find
what they need online.
Best Practices Include:
▪ Website Usability
▪ Information Architecture
▪ Navigation
▪ Design
▪ User Input: Focus Groups, Usability
Testing, Surveys
▪ Writing for the Web
Website Usability
▪ You are not your user.
▪ A good web page is self-evident and easy to
use.
▪ Don’t make me think.*
*This is also the name of Steve Krug’s great book
on web usability. See last slide for a list of web
resources .
Information Architecture
▪ A website’s underlying structure.
▪ Makes it possible for the user to navigate
through the information.
▪ Makes the website predictable to the user.
▪ Helps define navigational schema and
layout.
▪ A standard IA throughout a family of
websites improves usability.
Navigation
From “Don’t Make Me
Think” by Steve Krug
Navigation Cont’…
▪ Unlike a store a website has:
▪ No sense of scale. 1 page or 10,000?
▪ No sense of direction.
▪ No sense of location.
Navigation Cont’…
Every page should answer these 6 questions:
1. What site is this?
2. What page am I on?
3. What are the major sections of this site?
(global nav)
4. What are my options at this level? (local nav)
5. Where am I?
6. How can I search?
Web Design
From “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug
Design Cont’…
▪ Holy wars damage the team and the site.
▪ Should come down to what is best for the user.
(Pulldown menu example: “Does this pulldown, with these
items and this wording in this context on this page create a
good experience for most people who are likely to use this
site?”)
▪ User testing can answer most of these questions.
▪ Some parameters set from above.
User Input
Focus Groups
▪ Not the same as user testing.
▪ Structured group interviews that determine
user’s priorities, perceived needs and
generates ideas.
▪ Designed to make people feel comfortable
revealing their thoughts and feelings.
Focus Groups Con’t.
▪ Used early in the (re)development cycle.
▪ Exploratory.
▪ Conducted with carefully picked,
homogenous audiences.
▪ Not useful for figuring our how people
actually behave or if a system is usable.
Usability Testing
▪ One user at a time is shown something (a
working website, a page, a series of sketches)
and asked to either:
▪ Figure out what it is
▪ Try to use it to perform a typical task
Usability Testing Cont’…
▪ Testing 1 user is 100% better than testing none.
▪ Testing 1 user early in the project is better than testing
50 near the end.
▪ The importance of recruiting representative users is
overrated.
▪ The point of testing is not to prove or disprove
something. It’s to inform your judgement.
▪ Testing is an iterative process - test, fix, test, fix…
▪ Nothing beats a live audience reaction.
Surveys
▪ A survey is a set of questions that creates a structured
way of asking large groups of people to describe
themselves, their interests, and their preferences.
▪ They are quantitative and designed to be statistically
significant.
▪ They allow you to create accurate user profiles (age,
likes, dislikes, technical abilities, OS, browser, etc.)
▪ They can go wrong because they lack direct contact with
the survey taker and depend on the perceptions they
have of themselves.
Writing for the Web
From “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug
Writing for the Web
▪ Users scan pages. Use short, scan-able
block of text.
▪ If they can’t scan it, they won’t read it…
▪ Web readers are impatient.
Writing for the Web Cont’…
▪ Direct Marketing Copy Style:
▪ Short sentences
▪ Short paragraphs (50 words)
▪ Use meaningful sub-heads
▪ Bullet points
▪ Anglo-saxon words… “Walk” not “Ambulate”
▪ Same can be said for effective email
From “Writing for the Web” seminar by Robert E. Johnson, 2006
Writing for the Web Cont’…
▪ One idea per paragraph (users will skip over any
additional ideas if they are not caught by the first
few words in the paragraph)
▪ The inverted pyramid style, starting with the
conclusion
▪ Half the word count (or less) than conventional
writing
▪ Credibility is important (who is behind the info)
▪ Users detested "marketese” (Happy talk)
Writing for the Web by Jakob Nielsen @ useit.com
Review & Plan Your Site
▪ How can I improve my website?
▪ Who are my users?
▪ What pages are being used - server logs.
▪ Consider surveys, focus groups, user
testing.
▪ Create/update I.A. and Navigation.
▪ Review your writing/style.
Books, Websites, and Seminars
▪ Don't Make Me Think : A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (2nd
Edition) by Steve Krug. 2004.
▪ Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research
by Mike Kuniavsk.
▪ Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines. Sanjay J. Koyani,
Robert W. Bailey, and Janice R. Nall. U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, 2004.
▪ Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale
Web Sites by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville. 2002.
▪ Writing for the Web, web seminar. By Robert E. Johnson, PhD. Presented
by Council for Advancement and Support of Education. 2006.
▪ Texas State University Web Policies and Procedures, draft 2005.
▪ Writing for the Web by Jakob Nielsen @ useit.com
http://www.useit.com/papers/webwriting/
