Relevance Transparency & Usability

I just got back from Bali, and took some time while on vacation to look at why websites blow. Now as I watched them drive on the left side of the road in Bali, it made me wonder why some many websites are on the left side of the Web rather than the right side of the Web. It’s not as if websites mean to drive on the wrong side of the www, but so many sites do. Take for instance a site that is loaded up with what the site owner wants. Oh, it maybe riveting; however, reality meets fallacy. So how does a website get on the right side of the Web?

• Fulfill what the visitor is searching for
• Path the website’s purpose (meaning make a purchase, a signup, a phone call, produce a lead…)

In other words, website content has to crisscross a visitor’s perception that meets their quest.

Another detail deals with fitting the reason why your website was pulled. The person is expecting it to be their solution. So why is it then that so many damn websites not communicate what they are about? This made me go back and even look at a website that sells high-end animal houses. What I’m confused about is if it’s actually a blog or a retail site. Guess that’s why I have not purchased anything. Break it all down and you have an unusable website.

The moral of the story here:

• Don’t make me think
• Don’t make me leave your website
• Don’t play stupid music
• Don’t have pop-ups or pop-unders
• Don’t bore me with your stupid videos
• Don’t have that person popping up (what is that about?)
• Don’t have your font so small that it takes a magnifying glass to read
• Don’t have your keywords so stuffed that it reads like garble goop
• Don’t make your website out of flash
• And for dog’s sake make that website mobile optimized