Criteria for Optimal Web Design
During the time I spent at my previous job as a web developer, I was often sorting the good web design advice from the bad. Like many aspects of life on the web, good web design is largely a matter of opinion. What one person likes may irritate or confuse another person, leaving webmasters in the dark as to best practices. Printed works offer very little reprieve from this confusion, as many authors are simply writing their opinions, which, although more experienced than the average internet user, still represent bias. I was very pleased, therefore, when I happened upon a collection of objective criteria based on thorough, scientific user testing. Published by the Software Usability Research Laboratory at Wichita State University, Criteria for Optimal Web Design stands out as a solid resource for any aspiring web designer.
The several-page article covers the whole gamut of web design principles. I was happy to see that one of my pet peeves, namely color usage, received a lot of attention. It speaks to the importance of color associations in basic aspects of web design such as hyperlinking, and even explores the cross-cultural implications of color use. Perhaps the best advice along these lines are the guidelines on mixing text and background color for readability.
Criteria for Optimal Web Design also speaks a great deal to website navigation and layout. This is perhaps the first instance in which I’ve seen such a comprehensive selection of heat maps for navigational link placement. The article presents research on using bread crumbs and categorical menu hierarchies to keep users from getting lost in larger websites. It even goes into detail on rigid versus fluid layouts and the acceptable use of frames.
Perhaps some of the best advice to be found, and certainly advice that I wish more people recognized, are the sections devoted to content. Far too many websites suffer from poor scanability and inferior or marketting-intensive writing styles. Criteria for Optimal Web Design presents findings that suggest a concise, objective writing style, liberal use of lists, and adherence to certain fonts and sentence widths will lead to a superior user experience.
More than anything, the article demonstrates the most important principle of good web design. Websites should be designed for human users. Humans will misunderstand navigation, will fail to notice things, and will click away from a page before reading instructions. A good website must be easy to browse, easy to read, and forgiving of its users’ mistakes. It shouldn’t demand attention (such as with animated graphics, banners, or popups), lead users to incorrect or nonexistent pages, or present information in an unreadable or cluttered format.
This is, unfortunately, only a sampling of the advice presented in Criteria for Optimal Web Design. As an experienced webmaster and web designer, this is the best resource for website usability that I have ever come across. And while it might read like the scientific article that it is, the information presented is nonetheless profoundly useful. I tip my hat to the folks at WSU for compiling such a comprehensive resource on web design.