Now that you have a feeling for all of the moving parts, you’re ready to try my acid test for good Web navigation. Here’s how it goes:
Imagine that you’ve been blindfolded and locked in the trunk of a car, then driven around for a while and dumped on a page somewhere deep in the bowels of a Web site. If the page is well designed, when your vision clears you should be able to answer these questions without hesitation:
What site is this? (Site ID)
What page am I on? (Page name)
What are the major sections of this site? (Sections) What are my options at this level? (Local navigation)
Where am I in the scheme of things? (“You are here” indicators) How can I search?
Why the Goodfellas motif? Because it’s so easy to forget that the Web experience is often more like being abducted than following a garden path.
When you’re designing pages, it’s tempting to think that people will reach them by starting at the Home page and following the nice, neat paths you’ve laid out.
But the reality is that we’re often dropped down in the middle of a site with no idea where we are because we’ve followed a link from a search engine, a social networking site, or email from a friend, and we’ve never seen this site’s navigation scheme before.
And the blindfold? You want your vision to be slightly blurry, because the true test isn’t whether you can figure it out given enough time and close scrutiny. The standard needs to be that these elements pop off the page so clearly that it doesn’t matter whether you’re looking closely or not. You want to be relying solely on the overall appearance of things, not the details.
Here’s how you perform the trunk test:
Step 1: Choose a page anywhere in the site at random, and print it.
Step 2: Hold it at arm’s length or squint so you can’t really study it closely.
Step 3: As quickly as possible, try to find and circle each of these items:
Site ID Page name
Sections (Primary navigation) Local navigation
“You are here” indicator(s) Search
Try it on your own site and see how well it works. Then ask some friends to try it, too. You may be surprised by the results.
Chapter 7. The Big Bang Theory of Web Design
THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING PEOPLE OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT
Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do.
—DESI ARNAZ, AS RICKY RICARDO
Designing a Home page often reminds me of the classic TV game show Beat the Clock.
Each contestant would listen patiently while emcee Bud Collyer explained the
“stunt” she had to perform. For instance, “You have 45 seconds to toss five of these water balloons into the colander strapped to your head.”
The stunt always looked tricky, but doable with a little luck.
But then just as the contestant was ready to begin, Bud would always add,
“Oh, there’s just one more thing: you have to do it...blindfolded.” Or “...under water.” Or “...in the fifth dimension.”
Bud Collyer offers words of encouragement to a plucky contestant
It’s that way with the Home page. Just when you think you’ve covered all the bases, there’s always just one...more...thing.
Think about all the things the Home page has to accommodate:
Site identity and mission. Right off the bat, the Home page has to
tell me what site this is and what it’s for—and if possible, why I should be here and not at some other site.
Site hierarchy. The Home page has to give an overview of what the site has to offer—both content (“What can I find here?”) and features (“What can I do here?”)—and how it’s all organized. This is usually handled by the persistent navigation.
Search. Most sites need to have a prominently displayed search box on the Home page.
Teases. Like the cover of a magazine, the Home page needs to entice me with hints of the “good stuff” inside.
Content promos spotlight the newest, best, or most popular pieces of content, like top stories and hot deals.
Feature promos invite me to explore additional sections of the site or try out features.
Timely content. If the site’s success depends on my coming back often, the Home page probably needs to have some content that gets updated frequently. And even a site that doesn’t need regular visitors needs some signs of life—even if only a link to a recent press release
—to signal to me that it’s not abandoned or hopelessly outdated.
Deals. Home page space needs to be allocated for whatever
advertising, cross-promotion, and co-branding deals have been made.
Shortcuts. The most frequently requested pieces of content (software updates, for instance) may deserve their own links on the Home page so that people don’t have to hunt for them.
Registration. If the site uses registration, the Home page needs links or text boxes for new users to register and old users to sign in and a way to let me know that I’m signed in (“Welcome back, Steve Krug”).
In addition to these concrete needs, the Home page also has to meet a few abstract objectives:
Show me what I’m looking for. The Home page needs to make it obvious how to get to whatever I want—assuming it’s somewhere on the site.
...and what I’m not looking for. At the same time, the Home page needs to expose me to some of the wonderful things the site has to offer that I might be interested in—even though I’m not actively looking for them.
Show me where to start. There’s nothing worse than encountering a new Home page and having no idea where to begin.
Establish credibility and trust. For some visitors, the Home page will be the only chance your site gets to create a good impression.