OK so the title of this post might be a bit exaggerated, however a website usability industry expert (Jakob Nielsen) has published a recent report stating that 80% of a user’s time is spent ‘above the fold’. Whilst each user will obviously have a different level of attention span, users are without doubt averse to too much scrolling, and they are likely to pay most attention to the top-most web page content.

What does this mean for website owners and ecommerce sites?

• Firstly the top of the page is the most important part and any calls to action / important information should be located near the top.
• Don’t put important information near the bottom of a long web page, users are a lot less likely to scroll to the bottom.
• Consider your website’s target audience demographics – certain types of users, perhaps based on age groups or computer familiarity, are less likely to scroll than other groups. It may be necessary to indicate to users that more information can be found by scrolling.
• To maximise sales, ecommerce sites should avoid displaying too many products on one web page, and product pages should contain all the relevant information ‘above the fold’.

If you work in a small or micro business with few employees, it is likely that you don’t have to do as many presentations as you would in a larger company. Delivering an effective and engaging presentation isn’t just something which you practice a few times at school or college and then forget about – you never know when they might come in handy. There are a variety of situations from networking events to delivering speeches to customer groups that require good presenting skills, and as with most things, practice definitely helps, especially with reducing nerves. Whilst it can be difficult to get all of your important ideas across effectively and in a structured manner in just five minutes, it’s by no means impossible. I came across a short 5 minute video narrated by Vera Hughes (very RP accent by the way) on the Videojug website whereby they describe the key features and aspects to creating and delivering a presentation of this short length. These can be summarised as follows…

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When designing a website, one aspect to consider is what colour hyperlinks to display on the website. It sounds like a trivial choice, with a few potential strategies to choose, such as…

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Many businesses fail to even consider the full potential the Internet can offer, and don’t understand that websites can be interactive mediums as well as one-way information-giving sites. There are a variety of technologies and applications out there or that can be installed that would improve the level of interactivity a business website offers. In some cases, certain types of interactivity such as forums or ‘live chat’ would not be appropriate to the impression some businesses intend to convey, however for other businesses, particularly those which require a significant amount of post-sale support or customer interaction, the extra interactivity can convey a collaborative and a “We’re listing to our customers” feel.

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