Is There a Tension Between A Link-Rich Home Page and A Home Page that Looks Good?
August 3rd, 2006
I’m betting you didn’t notice that VeritasIdeas.com had a major relaunch of their home page. Why would you? Unless you’re an architect or interior designer of commercial office space, you’d have little reason to be on the site.
But, I’m paid to notice these things and I did notice their new home page. I think it’s a great step in the right direction.
Click to see the new VeritasIdeas.com home page.
The new page brings more of the site out to the surface. They’ve done a nice job of letting users know they can create their own samples without having to talk to a salesperson.
In fact, I think it’s a huge improvement over their old home page:
Click to see the old VeritasIdeas.com home page.
The new page retains the old page’s classy design aesthetic, while making more of the content on the site available.
But, I’m wondering if the designers went far enough. After all, if we look at the site map, we can plainly see the site has a lot more to offer.
Click to see the VeritasIdeas.com site map.
For example, the user still has to know there are featured designers highlighted on the site or that they can create special orders with their own interlayer material and resin properties. This is important content on the site, but users are unaware it’s available without clicking through everything.
Of course, to make this happen, the designers would have to add more links to the home page. And more links might take away from the aesthetic classiness of the site.
In fact, I got this exact question when I talked about the old VeritasIdeas.com home page design during my UIE Virtual Seminar a few weeks ago:
How do you balance providing lots of links and style? The Veritas page is sexy but the site map is boring. How do you balance the two?
I also was sent these questions during the seminar, so this is a common thought people have:
How do you balance providing enough content with creating a clean and attractive design?
What are some techniques to determine how to strike a balance between link rich home pages and a visually appealing site? How do you determine which links should be on the home page and which should be left off?
and this particularly interesting one:
Some people walked out of this session saying that link richness simply ruins design. One said our home page design provides a sense of place and welcome that an unwieldy bunch of links simply can’t convey. Do you have any suggestions for how to get folks to consider the value of link rich home pages (without drop down menus)?
The question becomes, is an “unwieldy bunch of links” the only way to move all that value onto the home page? Certainly, it’s an option, but is it the only one? I think that both the Analog Devices home page and the New York Times home page have a large number of links (close to 200 each) without being unwieldy.
Of course, it takes more work and probably more talent to make a link rich design look good than it takes to make a link-poor design look classy. I wonder if the people walking out of the room are just afraid of the challenge.
I don’t think there needs to be a tension between making a page contain all the useful information it needs to contain and having that page be aesthetically delightful. On the contrary, I think that’s the ideal goal to achieve.
August 4th, 2006 at 5:03 am
Thinking that less links is better is simply ego-centristic. If you think of your customers, you’d rather go with more links to important pieces of content.
August 4th, 2006 at 4:30 pm
This is a very interesting topic. I make my living designing blogs, so I’ve spent a great deal of time considering how to make link-rich pages effective and elegant. I’m wildly self-serving in saying this, but I do think that training and skill as a designer, as well as a strong intuitive sense are needed to find that balance - or at least to do it repeatedly.
Thanks for a terrific article.
August 4th, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Perhaps with AJAX there are now opportunities to reveal underlying structures through transitions without even having to leave the Home Page?
However, the question still remains - is there a need for large information structures in the first place?
I wonder if a company will ever bite the bullet and say its THIS we want to do via our web channel, do it really well and NO more. Perhaps there are companies that have done this already?
August 7th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
An interesting observation: The three “good” examples Jared mentions (Veritas, Analog Devices and NYT as well as Craigslist) all have links without the famous blue underlines.
Perhaps getting rid of the underlines helps make the page more classy and less unwieldy.
(See http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/07/05/do-links-need-underlines/ for more info)
August 7th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Two timely articles - on the link-rich home page and the quiet death or major re-launch - have now thrown a monkey-wrench into a project now underway for our website. The challenge for us, and for many like us, is that an instructional, information-rich website (espeiclaly one that has evolved piece-meal over several years) is all about users finding answers and help with as little wasted effort (on their part) as possible.
Examples with 200 links on the home page, despite what some might feel, makes a site appear overwhelming. At least, that’s true to anyone who doesn’t need the information. But if you as a user need something it should be right there in front of your face or no more than one click away.
That doesn’t mean clean design is impossible - we are currently working to remove “visual clutter” and replace it with “constructive clutter” on our home page. It is a battle between instructor and designer.
It also, inevitable is a struggle between what we’d like to do - the overhaul/redesign - and what we should do - gradually make the site better and better for our users.
I wonder whether there is not merit in gradually making content and navigation in stages (not just color changes). It requires having the ultimate template in mind, plus the added effort of transitional stages.