Many web professionals often hear from their clients that all website content should be visible to users on “standard desktop resolution” (whatever that is) without scrolling. This is known as “above the fold” in graphic design. They are usually hard to convince that this it not necessary because people who browse the web are familiar with scrolling.
Now we have evidence from user testing to support this:
Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want.
Three important design tips are given in the end of the article:
- Less is more – don’t be tempted to cram everything above the fold. Good use of whitespace and imagery encourages exploration.
- Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling - this doesn’t mean stop using horizontal full width elements. Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.
- Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars - the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.
(via 456 Berea Street)
December 15th, 2009 in
ui design |
No Comments
Google Zeitgeist lists again the trends around the world based on search queries.
In Finland the top 10 list looks a little weird:
- facebook
- youtube
- iltalehti
- ilta-sanomat
- irc
- suomi24
- nettiauto
- mtv3
- hotmail
- gmail
All these queries are also popular web sites (#5 means probably Irc-Galleria). It is clear that a lot of people in Finland, and around the world too, use the built in search field in browsers to find their favourite web site.
Why?
First thing that comes in mind tells me that URLs are too cryptic and difficult to type correctly even when they are actually really simple. It is easier to type your popular search query and get a list of links of which you may choose the one pointing to your desired destination.
This is assumedly one reason why Google abandoned the separate search field in Chrome and decided to use a combined search and address field. It does not matter if you’re writing the URL or the search terms. You’ll get your results anyway.
Key command to cycle through application windows in OS X is ⌘⇥. This is a very problematic function because it does not care whether applications have open windows or not. If you close a window, the program still runs on background, but you cannot activate its main window by command-tabbing which is very confusing.
In some programs you may open a new window hitting ⌘N, but in some programs, for example Mail.app, there are different ways to get to the main window. In Mail.app you have to check for new mail to see the hidden main window with command ⌘⌥N. Not so easy to remember.
Key command for switching between windows in OS X is ⌘`, which is quite difficult to enter with Swedish/Finnish keyboard layout because you have to hit three keys together and ` simply is not the most used key. Of course this command does not work for all programs. For example the Terminal.app uses ⌘← and ⌘→ to move from one window to another.
Could it be too difficult to assign a single key command to switch between windows inside a single program which would work in every application as expected?
