unit four reading

READING SUMMARY

Chapter 7 discusses the homepage even further in depth than we've gone previously. It begins by breaking down how a user feels when a homepage is landed upon. The four main questions they might be asking are: What is this, what do they have here, what can i do here, and why should I be here (instead of somewhere else). It is important for the designer to leave clues for the user to figure out the answers to these questions on the homepage. This can be achieved a number of ways including keeping the most important content above the fold, using a tagline, welcome blurb, and headings, as well as easy to understand navigation with a prominent logo.

Now let's break these ideas down a bit. Above the fold sounds strange for a website, since you can't fold your browser. Think about it in the sense of a newspaper. The most important story is on the fron page, in bold type, above where the paper gets folded. Other stories can also be shown, and we get the idea that they are important as well. Imagining the upper quarter of your webpage as above the fold can help you to place your most important content there. Obviously, one must be careful not to crowd it too much.

A tagline is the space near the site idea or logo and it usually is a phrase that helps the user understand what the site is about. For example, goodfuckingdesignadvice.com has a tagline that states, "serving the working class designer since 2010." While this is probably not the best example of a tagline, it is one nonetheless. A tagline should be short, think between 6 and 8 words and it should avoid being generic or cliche. This tagline feels a bit cliche, but the website title as well as address give a pretty good idea of what the site is.

Next we may or may not have a welcome blurb, depending on need. If you look at colourlovers.com you will find a nice welcome blurb, "Share your color ideas & inspiration. COLOURlovers is a creative community where people from around the world create and share colors, palettes and patterns, discuss the latest trends and explore colorful articles... All in the spirit of love." This blurb really helps the user understand what the website is about. It also uses a technic of bolding important keywords, so a natural reader (skimmer) will pick on them even if they don't read the rest of the blurb.

I feel like at this point I've hit pretty hard on navigation and site id, so if you REALLY need more information on that you can just buy the book!

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Create a Rock Solid Tagline
Your Tagline: The Most Important Ad You'll Make
Website Taglines
Above The Fold (a whole website dedicated to UX and living life on the upper edge... of the page)
Life Below 600px
Some More Cool Navigation