Formatting a Website with Personality Types in Mind
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Welcome to the third part of a three-part series aimed at helping you improve your conversions by catering to the personality types that visit your web site. In the first article of this series we discussed four different personality types, their traits, habits and preferred methods of decision-making. In the second article we touched on copy writing and after sales service for each personality type. In this article we will discuss design elements and design combinations for each personality type.
Site Design Essentials
Before going into design for each personality, let's touch on the foremost design essential - usability.
"On the Web, usability is a necessary condition for survival. If a website is difficult to use, people leave. If the homepage fails to clearly state what a company offers and what users can do on the site, people leave. If users get lost on a website, they leave. If a web site's information is hard to read or doesn't answer users' key questions, they leave. Note a pattern here? There's no such thing as a user reading a website manual or otherwise spending much time trying to figure out an interface. There are plenty of other websites available; leaving is the first line of defense when users encounter a difficulty." - Jakob Nielsen
Above all:
It should be easy to get from A to F, L or Z page. The three-click rule works best as a target. This rule states that if site visitor cannot find what he's looking for in three clicks, he's gone. Make sure he can find what he needs regardless of his current location on your site. I find that the best way to approach this is to use links in vertical navigation as section links, and use the right or left side navigation links to guide users within sections. With this approach, links in vertical navigation (left or right) differ from section to section, while the top links always stay consistent. Check the Linkscape help section to see it in action.
Rely on content links. Users are extremely LAZY creatures; they don't want to spend time looking for what they need. Guide them with content links. SEObook.com does a perfect job of this. Brooks Group and optimization.ca also serve as good examples.
Make your design easy on the eyes. With good taste, you can keep this aspect under control. View bad designs from a usability perspective to see what to avoid.
Feature the search box prominently on your website. Use Google custom search for a $100 per year to make sure your internal search engine does its job, as most others do not work nearly as well. It's very frustrating when a site's internal search engine doesn't return any results or gives a bunch of completely irrelevant links. After being spoiled by Google, users will not tolerate crappy SERPs, so be sure to provide quality.
Include high quality photography. If you're selling merchandise, product pictures are some of the most important elements on the page. Make sure your photography is of the highest possible quality.
You can find more website usability tips at www.useit.com.
Next: Designing for the Four Personality Types >>
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