Description: You work hard providing top-notch content on your site. Will your users find it? If they don’t, all that effort is for nothing. What can you do to guarantee that users find the content they’ve come looking for? You’ll come away with the most up-to-the-minute research on how people actually navigate sites, learning secrets behind successful designs including Lands’ End, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, CNN, and the BBC.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:41:39 AM
Links give a scent of the content they contain, make the scent strong.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:42:57 AM
Content pages are what the user came for, they didn't come to browse. The target content page, the page the user came for, is the most important page on the site.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:43:46 AM
When is the user done on the site? It's easy to tell with e-commerce, they're done when they've paid.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:44:07 AM
Getting form the home page to the content using a gallery page (a decision page). Example: All men's shirts.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:45:02 AM
Content gets more specific and the user clicks. Links contain trigger words to attract the user's attention.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:45:55 AM
3 things ensure failure to find the target content: Use of the back button, Pogo-sticking and Use of Search.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:46:28 AM
The back button guarantees failure. If a user doesn't use it their success rate of finding content is 42%, if they use the back button it drops to 18%. If they use it twice it drops to 2%.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:47:34 AM
Pogo-sticking is going back and forth between pages. 2/3 of all e-commerce sales happen with no pogo-sticking. Success rate without pogo-sticking is 55%, with falls to 11%.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:48:43 AM
Search is like creating your own link if you don't find one that you think will work. Success is 53% without search and 30% with search.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:49:30 AM
On the gallery page give user enough info to prevent pogo-sticking. Use links with trigger words and make links 7-12 words long, very descriptive, no guessing.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:50:13 AM
Longer single pages do better than shorter multiple pages. The more clicks to make a sale the less you will sell.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:50:36 AM
Give lots of info on decision pages so they don't have to go to the actual product page to see if it's what they were looking for.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:51:15 AM
Link order is important. Alphabetical is the same as random. "A quick air conditioner tip"
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:51:42 AM
Don't make links too short and too vague, don't make people guess that what's on the other side of the link.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:52:17 AM
Each click should eliminate parts of the site's hierarchy.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:52:45 AM
Home page is the least important page on the website, it's only purpose is to get users to other content. Like a hotel lobby.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:53:32 AM
On home page 86.8% click categories, 6.8% search, 1.3% click on featured content and 2.6% click on the home link on the home page!
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:54:33 AM
Lost of categories and descriptions of those categories with little featured content.
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:55:01 AM
The back button is the "button of doom".
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:55:16 AM
End
by Matt McCausland at 6/24/2008 2:55:17 AM