Article: Prioritizing Design Time: A Long Tail Approach
April 24th, 2006
UIEtips 4/24/06: Prioritizing Design Time: A Long Tail Approach
Several years ago, we came to the realization that there are eight distinct types of navigation pages that users encounter as they work through a web site trying to locate their target content. Since then, our research has consistently shown that the most successful design teams are those that understand these different page types and prioritize their design resources accordingly.
As we’ve researched further, it’s become clear to us that, out of the eight types of pages, the least important navigation page is the Home Page. But all too often, clients tell us they spend the majority of their time focusing on the design of the home page.
In this issue of UIEtips, Joshua Porter has written an excellent article suggesting that other parts of your site might be far more worthy of attention than the home page. Josh discusses how design teams may be better served taking a “Long Tail” approach to design, focusing on their site’s less accessed pages instead of the home page.
Does your home page get too much attention from the design team? What pages does your design time focus the most energy on? We’d love to hear what you’ve been doing. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
If the article interests you, Joshua Porter and I will be discussing UIE’s latest research at the upcoming User Interface 11 Conference this October. In our full-day seminar, Web Site Usability 2006: The Latest Research, Joshua and I will share UIE’s outlook on the latest topics in web design, such as The Long Tail.
I can tell you our session is going to fill up quickly so, if you are interested, you’ll need to register right away. (Plus, we’re giving away iPod nanos if you sign up by April 25th! )
Read the article here.
April 24th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
Our home page is definitely the one that gets the most attention from the rest of the organization. We try and find a balance between supporting the marketing needs of the organization and making sure that users can quickly get to the most important parts of the web site.
As far as our design process is concerned, the home page is the last page that gets built. It’s only once the rest of the site has been developed that we have a clear picture of where we want to direct users to and how best to do that.
Sidenote: you should remind Josh that no one uses the term ‘hits’ anymore. I assume he means page views?
April 24th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Hi Christian. Yes, in those places I used the word “hit”, I use it interchangeably with “view”. Sorry for any confusion.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
I’ve fought many battles for the years trying to convince operations, marekting, and uppper management that we should not waste our time desiging our home page. Especially when we get most of our traffic to our landing pages (product detail pages).
To this day I have a hard time getting through to everyone. The article gives me a great idea on how to backup my reasoning.
Thanks.
Paresh
April 24th, 2006 at 7:07 pm
A good theory, but one must also remember to get a reality check against the user’s entry path. How did the users get to these other pages? If a majority came from search engines/links et al, then this is solid. If they came from the homepage, then we haven’t learned much.
In favor of your theory, I’ve been noticing the greatest traffic hitting my clients’ product landing pages. They tend to have the greatest amount of relevant data for search engines to spider.
April 25th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Good content drives users back. If users can by pass the Home page to access articles directly thats what they will probably do.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Yes, Davezilla, a reality check is necessary. However, the trend we’re seeing is going the other way. Search engines and RSS are both pushing people away from the home page, and so the home page is receiving a smaller and smaller share of views.
April 25th, 2006 at 8:38 am
So what are these eight types of navigation page. I can think of only a few, styles of navigational page, sitemap, atoz index and table of contents?
April 25th, 2006 at 9:34 am
Couldn’t agree more. I’ve coached clients to try and understand what a successful site exit experince looks like - from the visitors point of view - and then design the site backwards from there. Starting with the end in mind forces you to focus on the site’s real value propositions. Like a shopping mall, web sites should have many entry points depending on the visitor’s interests and where they’re coming from. As long they get what they came for I suspect most visitors don’t care if they ever see the lobby.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:23 pm
My current organization takes a very intelligent approach to home page design. There’s a good understanding around here that the important pages are the lower-level ones that actually carry the payload of the content. Those are the ones users are far more likely to arrive at, via search engines.
I have, however, worked in organizations in which the internal clientele has been obsessive about home page design and content, usually to the detriment of the rest of the site. There seems to be a circus poster mentality within some organizations regarding the home page: use it to blast pictures and movies, and marketing messages. Redesign it and rearrange it often. Unfortunatlely this approach ties up the time and creativity of the designers, the developers, and the writers on the Web team.
April 25th, 2006 at 1:31 pm
Sara —
Jared has written a post summarizing the eight types of navigation pages here.
April 25th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
Be interesting discussion to see:
How teams decide what content to allocate on the Home Page?
How is the content prioritized?
Who is involved in that decision?
What business metrics are tied into this?
How often the Home Page is updated? And based on what criteria?
What other questions need to be asked to assess the value of the Home Page?