by Kevin Sanchez

Created on: July 26, 2010

= Introduction =

So you decided to create a website. One thing you have to keep in mind now, is that usability and user-friendly of your website is an important key which will decide the success of your website. You do want to satisfy your visitors, right? Nothing is as sad as seeing your visitors leave in frustration, never to come back. In this article, I'll give you five tips so you can too build a user-friendly website.

= First tip: Go with the flow =

People are used to some things, such as a navigation bar being on the left or top of the page, a clickable header that will send the user to the home page of your site etc. These little things make life easier; visitors expect that sites work like this. You can be creative and all that, but it is advised that you leave navigation-related things the way people are used to them.

= Second tip: Avoid messy pages =

After building your website, inspect it thoroughly and ask yourself this question again and again: 'Does this and that element really needs to be there?' Everything you put on your page draws the attention of your visitors. Good elements, but also annoying elements such as too many animated GIF-images etc. Avoid these, and only put elements on your site that you feel are needed.

= Third tip: You are creating a website =

That's right! You are creating a website... a website, not a video, not a Powerpoint presentation, but a website. People might like a certain article on your website, bookmark it, and then come back to read the article later on. After reading that article, they might be interested in the rest of your site and explore your site. This is only possible if your site is easy to explore: build a good and consistent navigation system on every page on your site.

= Fourth tip: Don't push your visitors do to anything =

People surfing the web love to be in control. They visited your site looking for something they were searching for. People hunt, they don't browse. They're in control, and don't like to encounter roadblocks on their path. With roadblocks, I mean Flash introductions they need to watch before entering your site etc. This will annoy people and make them leave.

= Fifth and last tip: Do not overuse Flash =

If you build your website in Flash, that's a good thing. Flash is a very powerful tool that can be used to demonstrate stuff, but it is also easy to overuse Flash so that it becomes a huge distraction to your visitors. Animation is very hard to ignore, be it Flash or GIF. It is okay if that is your goal, but don't you ever use it if you want people to read your content such as articles. Having an animation playing right next to your article will make it very difficult for the user to concentrate on your content.

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