intuitive website design

What Is Intuitive Website Design?

From Merriam-Webster Online:

Main Entry : in*tu*i*tive
1 a : known or perceived by intuition.

Main Entry : in*tu*i*tion
1 : quick and ready insight.

aka: Functional or Insightful Design

The concept behind Intuitive Website Design is fairly simple -- it’s website design that ‘works the way you expect it to ’.

Possibly without realizing it, you - along with millions of people who use the internet - have developed ‘expectations’ . Your personal expectations will of course be different from anyone elses based on your own individual tastes, and variables such as: time; environment; mood; past experiences; etc., none of which can be reliably anticipated by any website -- yet. ;)

However - experience does show that everyone shares similar basic functional expectations when it comes to doing business on the internet. It is the knowing, understanding and applying of this knowledge that makes the difference.

First and foremost -- “Don’t waste time”

To do business online with any success, your website must not make it difficult for the viewer to do what s/he came for, find what s/he is looking for, or get the information s/he needs.

Now is the time get your great content in front of the viewer quickly - so you’ll want to make sure yours is up to par. You might write out what you want to say by yourself first, then find forums or blogs specializing in writing for the internet, and read what they have to say. If there is an area appropriate for this, you might even ask for a critique. You will not get a free re-write - don’t even ask - but you may get some useful tips, and you might find that hiring a professional writer is a cost-effective solution for your project.

Now is NOT the time to put up road blocks such as poor navigation, confusing layouts or superfluous special effects such as animation or flash.

What? Superfluous Flash?

Can there be too much Flash? Absolutely!. Should your website use Flash effects? Maybe...

Are you selling Flash? Then by all means - you’ll probably want to build the entire site in flash to showcase your talents - but offer a non-flash version too.

But what if your website is NOT selling Flash? - then offer a flash snippet if you must - but never, never, never force your viewers to choose between waiting for your website effects to load to get what they want, or getting it NOW somewhere else - you WILL LOSE THE CUSTOMER.

3-2-1-Gone

I’ll not get into the debate over how long a website has to get a viewers attention....
3 seconds - 10 seconds - 30 seconds...I think there are too many individual variables at work, suffice it to say it’s not much.

In that miniscule span of time your website must be able to tell the viewer what they need to know to enable them to make that ‘split-second’ decision to stay and look further. You do this with content - not flashing images, bouncing text and fancy effects.

If Content is King, is Design the Queen?

Maybe....who’s the ruler at your ‘domain’ ? ;)

But seriously -- I think it’s really more of a ‘Partnership’ than a Monarchy. And like any partnership, sometimes things go wrong and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

We’ve all seen them...websites that give the impression that design and content are not ‘on the same page’. Maybe the design is good, maybe the content is good -- if they don’t work together - the results are chaotic.

Harmony, Sweet Harmony

When Content and Design work together on your website - the results are harmonious. The website design effectively displays and complements the content, the layout allows content to flow throughout the site, and navigation is accomplished almost without thinking.....

Author: DL Perry
DLPerry.com Professional Website Services
04-05-2006

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