Five Must-Have ‘User Experience’ (UX) Website Elements

Posted by on Jun 6, 2008 in Random Blabber | Comments Off

One rule of thumb for website usability is for visitors to instantly know what your site is all about within 10 seconds of coming to your site. Anything that confuses users should be removed – especially if they are not essential. Based on my studies, there are at least five must-have parts of any web page:

  1. Logo/Branding – this visual item distinguishes you from any other website out there. In my blog, I’ve preferred to use my personal avatar as the branding element. Corporate and business sites must have at least a logo to differentiate itself from the crowd. It’s something that must consistently be used in all marketing collaterals.
  2. Title and Tag line – This is a visual marker for a visitor to find out where they are. seeing this text reminds them that they are still in your website. The more relevant the text to the needs of your target audience, the better. The tag line must be able to convey the essence of your website as few words as possible.
  3. About this – This is particularly necessary for blogs. A link to the about page or perhaps a small snippet of text explaining the website or what the blog’s specialty is must be seen. Generally, it should be short enough not to eat too much visual space, yet long enough to convey the meaning of the site. This works like an explanation to the tagline.
  4. Search – All pages must give users the option to find more information on your site.
  5. Navigation menu – Give users the capability to move around the site. First, you must know the content of your website. This is called determining your content inventory. Once you have that, you group them in different ways like categories, tags or by date. These are then available as links on all pages in the website.

The elements here should actually be seen, if possible, on all web pages on your website. The only probably exceptions to this rule are view-cart pages for e-commerce websites.

I discussed the five elements above to some interns. As their assignment, they were to create initial wire frames of the home page their own personal or concept websites. Some of them already added some paint on the wire frames.

Take a look at what they’ve made:

How would you evaluate their work?

More To read:

  1. What To Do When No One Reads Your Blog
  2. How To Organize Categories on Your Blog
  3. How Jollibee Could Be Making More Money Off its website
  4. Awesome Web App: See Exactly What Your Users Are Doing On Your Site
  5. New Google Ad Techniques And A Note From A Reader

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