The AeroDesigns Web Design Blog » Website Tips

Website Users Stay ‘Above the Fold’

Chris Pangburn — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 22:00:46 +0000

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’.

Tags: above the fold, web designers, web page, scrolling, website users

How to Make Short 5 Minute Presentations

Chris Pangburn — Sat, 19 May 2007 19:57:50 +0000

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…

Prepare – Consider your audience, the message you intend to get across, and the unique features that your product can offer. Colour coded cards help for making notes.
Rehearse – Practice either in front of a mirror or in front of a friend / colleague. This will also help you get to grips with how much information you can include in the 5 minutes.
Appearance – Making sure you’re looking smart is a no-brainer, but try and wear clothes that contrast with the background – for example a black jacket against a white background would stand out rather than being disappearing against the background.
Making the presentation – Try and control your nerves by deep and slow breathing beforehand. Then make sure you stand tall, smile, and convey your message clearly, trying to look at different parts of the audience throughout the presentation. Finish with a call to action to invite responses.
Follow up – hand out business cards with space on for notes, and follow up with any contacts or questions within the next few days.

Tags: presentations, small business presentation, presentation tips

Are The Colours of Your Hyperlinks Killing Your Website?

Chris Pangburn — Fri, 18 May 2007 09:00:49 +0000

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…

Choice A – Choose links which blend into your website’s colour theme.
Choice B – Make them really stand out by choosing a colour that contrasts with the colour scheme.
Choice C – Go for the default blue links.

As Chris Denny over at LeadOptimize suggests, it isn’t as trivial a decision as it sounds, as the choice of colour can significantly impact conversion rates. Chris uses one of his clients as an example – initially the client was using hyperlinks that blended nicely into the theme of the website, however they were suffering from a very low conversion rate. By changing the colour of the links to make them stand out, this benefited the conversion rate by an enormous amount.

This strategy of making links stand out won’t necessarily be a ‘quick fix’ for every website, but it definitely emphasises the importance of aspects that would often be overlooked. Before making any permanent changes, it might be worth trying one colour of links for a week and then change the colour of the links for the second week and compare the conversion rates between the two. Don’t change the colours too frequently however, or your users will start to get a bit disoriented by the lack of consistency!

Tags: Hyperlink colours, increase conversions, choosing colours

The Power of Website Interactivity

Chris Pangburn — Thu, 10 May 2007 07:00:58 +0000

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.

There are various interactive applications that can be installed onto a website, the below list starts from the most interactive to the least.

Live support – In other words this can be a chat application, enabling your customers to gain instant contact with a representative when they need to. This can be good for both pre- and post-sales support.
Forums – These are discussion boards, where customers can post questions and comments, and you as a company can respond. Whilst you might worry about receiving any negative press that’s posted on the forum, perhaps it serves as more of an incentive to improve customer relations and make sure every customer is fully satisfied.
Guestbooks – For certain more personal (and perhaps smaller) businesses these can be quite useful (such as guesthouses and B&Bs) however for the more corporate website they should be avoided.
Blogs – If you’re not sure what a blog is, just look around on this page – that’s what this part of the site is. We have chosen to mix our company blog featuring press releases with a small business guide. You can of course just create a blog which contains information about your press releases, current developments and any other pertinent topics to your business. This allows customers to keep upto date with your business, and gives the feeling that you are dynamic constantly-working and improving company.

As I mentioned, not all of the above are appropriate for every business, but don’t rule them all out – have a look around at successful company webistes and see what others have implemented on their website.

Tags: website interactivity, interactive company, company websites, business, company, website