1.
Correct & Incorrect Methodology (Dos and Don’ts) of planing and designing a website.
Do make titles and headlines accurately describe the material on a page. Organize content in a logical order. Be brief.
Make the intended use of buttons obvious. Don’t use long button titles.
Do keep design simple. Do not use ultra-complicated features or too many pull down menus on the home page. Use a simple Search feature. Keep navigation obvious. Do let the user know where he is in the site in regard to other pages. Krug, Don’t Make me Think.
Design according to usability guidelines (Ease of Learning, Efficiency of Use, Memorability, Error Frequency, User Satisfaction etc). From www.usibility.gov .
2.
Techniques an Components that are effective and ineffective in the success of a website.
Frustration with a site will drive the user away, so always design w/ the user’s satisfaction in mind. A user won’t stick w/ an unattractive or annoying site. Krug. Make use of ambient signifiers and action verbs in navigation to guide the user and make them feel they are accomplishing a task. Hoekman.
3.
Google Analytics ( http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html )
has many features for tracking activity and gathering information. I can’t pretend to understand Most of them. The Internet Site Search makes the most sense. It can tell the sites owner how people are finding their site, which search words they use the most, what they look for when they get there where they end up. This info could help the site direct traffic to where it would do the most good. Geo marketing shows you where in the world you traffic is coming from. This can allow the site to better cater to it’s target audience. For instance, you get a lot of hits from China, you can research that the Chinese like Red and Gold (Prosperity) but White and Navy Blue remind them of Funerals, so you get rid of the Navy Blue font on the pages they hit most.
4.
In my opinion, yes there is a background color I don’t like. I don’t like that white is the default background color on 99% of websites. (Statistic made up). White is all colors of the spectrum combined, this means that the cathode ray tube is zapping your retinas at full intensity. LCD screens may not be so bad, and it might be a matter of how long you have to stare at the screen. When I worked a Perry’s, that was 8 hours a day. The Program I used most was Smart Draw. Eventually I wised up and learned to change the background color while I work and switch it back to white for printing. I experimented with many colors. I found an orange/tan color to be easiest on the eyes. I’ve read that green is the color that the human eye never gets tired of looking at, but that didn’t work on a 19″ cathode ray monitor. Dumb monitors I used way back when at CrossCreek were black with green letters. Genius! Black is the absence of rays on your retinas. Let bring it back!
What I do like about a site is when I actually find the information that I’m looking for. That is such a rare thing.
