5 Home Page Web Design Assumptions That Kill Usability

It used to be the favorite saying of an old colleague of mine - "When you assume

, you make an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'". Trite, but often true. The problem is that it can be incredibly difficult to identify when you are making assumptions! In terms of internet marketing, there are some websites that make a substantial number of assumptions on the home page, through both the web design and copywriting collaboratively. Given that search engine optimization campaigns, link building, and anchor text in article distribution or press release syndication almost always points to the home page, it's critical that you make no assumptions there. Today we look at some of the assumptions that really kill usability for your visitors.

1. "Our product/service/promotion is obvious"

This assumption is one of the most difficult to recognize, but one of the simplest to overcome. Sometimes, a business offers a product or service where not everyone is entirely sure of what it is. Sometimes businesses run promotions where the actual offer is not clear. If you make this assumption, your visitors will very likely make their own assumption ... that your website doesn't have anything they need (or can be bothered trying to decode). All those internet marketing and search engine optimization dollars are wasted.

2. "People will get annoyed by seeing the same explanation over and over again"

This isn't necessarily so. People are quite used to skimming for information on the internet - there are far worse information sins than simply repeating something, or leaving the same explanation of your site on every piece of correspondence you have with a customer. When certainty is removed, people are often suspicious - there is no harm in making sure people are certain about every aspect of your home page.

3. "If someone doesn't understand what our site is about, they aren't looking for us"

The temptation to think this is overwhelming! Obviously you don't want to patronize your audience with excessive explanation, but having clarity in your web design and copywriting combined certainly isn't harmful. Surveys of usability in web design and internet marketing often show respondents saying "Oh, I didn't realize that's what the site was about - I use that all the time". If your competitor's site is clear and yours isn't, there's only one guess that a visitor will choose to buy from. Unfortunately you can't judge clarity yourself - you need an outside perspective.

4. "Having promotional information on the home page is just a repetition of our other ads"

People may not have seen your print or TV ads - just because you know they exist, doesn't mean that everybody does. In fact, if your online marketing agency is doing a good job of search engine optimization, the number of people who will come directly to your site because they saw a TV ad will be minimal. People may not remember the offers from offline ads, in any case.

5. "If we put up a 'First Time Visitor?' link, we don't need to dumb the message down"

Many people either won't see, or won't use these links. You need to make your website design as easy to use as humanly possible or even familiar users will sometimes become frustrated when they try to do something new. Going through the 'First Time Visitor' process takes time ... that people might decide can better be used elsewhere. All the article distribution, press release syndication and SEO marketing in the world won't help if you make things hard for your site visitors.

by: Gregory Smyth

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