Chapter 2. The Web User Experience


22 How Well Do People Use the Web?

  • The Measure of Success

  • Web-Wide Success Rates

  • Success by Experience Level

26 User Satisfaction with Web Sites

  • Three Guidelines for Supporting Deep-Link Users

27 How People Use Sites

  • Three Guidelines for Supporting Deep-Link Users

  • The Homepage: So Much to Say, So Little Time

  • Four Goals in Thirty Seconds

  • Interior Page Behavior

  • Tip: Optimizing Interior Page Links

  • The Rise of "Answer Engines"

36 Search Dominance

  • The Rise of "Answer Engines"

  • Four Ways to Grab Value from Search Engine Visitors

  • Organic vs. Sponsored Links

  • How People Use the Search Engine Results Page

  • Number One Guideline for Search Engine Optimization

  • Using Keyword Pricing to Estimate Usability Improvements

  • How To Determine the Optimal Bid for a Search Keyword Ad

  • How Much Is Improved Usability Worth?

  • Three Reasons to Improve Your Site

45 Scrolling

  • Tip: Design for Short Scrolling

47 Complying with Design Conventions and Usability Guidelines

  • Defining Standards and Conventions

  • Seven Reasons for Standard Design Elements

52 Information Foraging

  • Recommended Reading

  • Information Scent: Predicting a Path's Success

  • Diet Selection: What Sites to Visit

  • Three Ways to Enhance Information Scent

  • Patch Abandonment: When to Hunt Elsewhere

  • New Design Strategies for Attracting Information Foragers

  • More information

  • Informavore Navigation Behavior

You have less than two minutes to communicate the first time a prospective customer visits your Web site. This is the basic fact about the Web experience: As far as users are concerned, every page must justify its claim on their time. If a page doesn't do that immediately and clearly, they go elsewhere. Most don't even bother scrolling to see what's further down the page.

Web users are extremely impatient: In our study, they spent an average of 27 seconds on each Web page. Why the rush? Because there's too much irrelevant junk on the Internet. If people carefully studied everything they came across online, they would never get to log off and have a life.

There's no silver bell that alerts users to a page that is worthy of their attention. You need to convince them. In this chapter we look at users' general behavior on the Webwhere they go first, how long they stay, what they do when they get there. We also examine the rise of "information foraging" and changes in the way people use search engines. When designing a site, these are the factors you need to keep in mind if you want people to stay long enough to see all that you have to offer.




Prioritizing Web Usability
Prioritizing Web Usability
ISBN: 0321350316
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 107

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