12 Principles - Page 3

8. Provide Adequate Contact, Illustrations and Explanations

"Answer the immediate question but don’t drown your customers in information. "Contact information should be easy to find and use. Only include contact information that is relevant to the user. Don’t over complicate things. Clear and simple contact forms work best. Use the data capture and make a personal enquiry rather than expecting a customer to fill out endless entry fields.
If your company’s product or service is complicated, don’t try to answer every question in detail on one page. Do provide documentation but do so in small manageable chunks. Answer the immediate question but don’t drown your customers in information.
Case Studies are an excellent way for companies to show real life examples of how their product or service was successfully utilized. Client testimonials are another excellent source to demonstrate successful usage and customer service.

9. Present All Content within the Confines of Your Goals            

Your products and services need to be distinct and driven. If your website graphic elements overwhelm them then you are confusing the goal of your site. A good illustration of this is logo placement. Logos are identifiers but you’re not selling your logo. You’re selling a branded product or service. Too often businesses waste valuable real estate and opportunities by over saturation of their logo. If the average website browser has a vertical height of 600 pixels then 300 pixel high presentation of your logo is waste of space and undermines your goal.
Instead, website graphic elements should work in support of your products. They should be used to create an attractive presentation of products and services.

10. Infuse Your Brand to Provide a Consistent Experience.

"Blend your identity elements into your website without sacrificing usability"
While over saturation of a logo is a common problem you can provide a consistent experience for your user through your brand. On the web, consistency builds trust.
Understand that your brand is not just your logo or your tag line. It’s also your over-all design scheme. Rather than introducing dramatic design or content shifts to differentiate products and services consider subtle changes that are consistent with the over all brand.
Carefully consider how you will blend your identity elements into your website without sacrificing usability and without misaligning the balance between the prominence of your products or services and the design of the site itself.

11. Promote and Leverage Your Work

There are many techniques for promoting your website. Consider joining professional online communities and networking with other community members. Submit your website to related websites.  Add a blog to your website. The more traffic you can pull to your website the more exposure your website will receive.  Leveraging your work involves linking to it when you send emails. Include a link to your website in you’re My Space profile or any other community you belong to.

12. Develop Your Long-Term Website Goals

It always helps to have a view toward the future. Your website needs are likely to change many times as your company matures and becomes successful. One thing a design team recommends is revisiting your web site design at 6 months intervals and using real life user data garnered through analytics to make design changes.
It’s also important that you share your long-term plans with your web site and design team. Knowing where you want and plan to be in 1, 5, and 10 years allows your team create a website  that is expandable.
A successful website finds that perfect blend of your identity, products and services, simplicity, and ease of use. This combination will make your website stand out from the crowd and achieve your goals.