How to Analyze a Website in 10 Steps
Good web design may be a matter of taste. And taste varies, depending on the region and culture, as well as other factors. However, there are some standards that should always be considered. If you have only a minute to decide about the overall quality of a website, here are some guidelines to follow:
1. Don’t make me think.
When you enter a website, you should understand its purpose in two seconds. You should be able to navigate through it instantly. Does this apply to the website you have on your screen? Good. If you’re lost, leave the website. No need to continue.
2. WOW factor.
Is the website attractive? Does it make you think: “I like this idea?” You probably found a good website. Most of the websites today are a copy of a copy of a website, so when you find a website with a fresh design concept, give it an extra point.
3. White space
This is the space which is NOT filled with images and text. When a website is completely covered with content, even into the tiniest corners, it is barely legible. The use of more “white space” drastically increases clarity.
4. Navigation
As already mentioned above, a clear navigation system has to answer two questions instantly: ‘Where am I?’ and ‘Where can I go from here?’. If you get this information at a glance, the navigation is great.
5. Typography
This is an area where inexperienced web designers make the most mistakes. Typography should be used to transport content to the reader. The way type is chosen (serif and sans serif) size and appearance, line length, line spacing, and kerning increases or decreases legibility. It is not about how many kinds of type in crammed in the smallest ≈available space, but about you, the reader. Less is more.
6. Grid
How are the web pages organized? Are they organized at all? When text and images are aligned in a way that the overall impression translates into clarity, harmony, and comfort, the website gets credits. A well organized website has an invisible grid underneath it. If content is placed wildly all over the page, the designer probably had no idea where he was going with the design and now neither does the visitor.
7. Colors
There is a science called Colorimetry that dictates the rules used for color theory in the graphic design industry. Despite such theory and science, it all comes down to a simple statement: there are colors that fit and others that don’t. Colors in web design should be used to emphasize or to support content. When the colors distract the visitor, the design has failed.
8. Consistency
Is the overall visual impression of the website the same from page one to page “end?” Or does the design change drastically? Are text and images displayed differently? The design concept of a website mimics that of a book: it has to be consistent from the first to the last page.
9. Browser Compatibility
All browsers are different, and—sorry, it’s true—they all allow different rules and code in websites. So sometimes websites look good in Firefox but look terrible, or won’t even show up, in Internet Explorer. Professional web designers know this and only use code that will be interpreted in the very same way in all browsers. Check a website in all browsers to see how it performs.
10. Speed
If you can make yourself a cup of tea while you’re waiting for a website to open completely in your browser, there is something amiss. Either you have an extremely slow Internet connection or the website is way “too heavy”. Even today, with super high speed Internet, a website should be built light and fast. With today’s technology, it is possible to present even the largest images crisp and clear with almost no remarkable problems with file size and website loading times.
If you practice, you can analyze a website quickly by following the 10 points you read above. Practice and sharpen your analytical skills and have fun.
Tags: Web Design
July 25th, 2008 at 4:43 am
great points, i’d say copy was a fairly important on a website also
July 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
You are right.
Copy is a very important point. However copy often has - at least in the first paragraphs of each page - have to follow the rules of Google. The trick is to combine both. One of my next articles will address this and will show some examples.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Great post. My only question is how do you define WOW factor? Specifically, what do you do if what “wows” me is completely boring to you? For example, I have been using curved corners for years now, and I find them boring. But lots of designers still feel they are exciting because they are so hard to do. I know you probably don’t mean something as minor as rounded corners, but they bore me and are “wow” for a lot of the designers I work with.
July 26th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
I’d add:
“Don’t put messages and an ummovable Technorati widget in such places as to cover up portions of an article.”
July 26th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Neil,
There are many good reasons to evaluate the quality and style of the copy. Copy is critical when you evaluate a site. When you evaluate the design, though, the design should be relatively content-independent. I can easily see leaving copy off this list of steps in evaluating the design. By focusing on the specific attributes of design, we can learn and critique that aspect of web construction.
Often the web designer, for small projects, is also the copy writer and the one that organizes and generates, as a best guess, the information that drives the writing of the copy. But on a large project, the designer may have minimal control over copy creation and maintenance.
Whether or not the designer has control over the copy, it makes sense to look at web design as a separate entity (or component part) from whether the web site works for the customer.
July 27th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Jennifer, this is a very good point. Sorry fro not getting too precise on the “Wow” factor. This is by a very good reason” How would you explain “boring’? Well you could, right? But how much words would it take and how abstract would it have to be? “Wow factor” in this sense simply means to attract instantly a significant number of visitors by getting their positive attention. Take a scale from getting “sleepy” to just be “completely awake”. how do I explain the “wow factor”. I guess you know how.
July 29th, 2008 at 12:29 am
WOW!, Excellent work, I’m really glad I found your blog. I just love your post. Keep up the good work. Cheers!
July 31st, 2008 at 11:52 am
Thanks for the Post. It was great to read and great info.
August 12th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!
November 9th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Just Googled and read the whole article and i must have to say that me and my husband loved reading your post. I liked your site because of the easy language you used to explain things here. Now i can stop my research having found my answer in this awesome article. We bookmarked and will regularly check more quality tips to come from your website. Thanks alot.
May 10th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Wonderful article!