Welcome to UX Fridays, my weekly post series where I showcase a brief UX lesson from my knowledge base to help you better your designs and aid you
in your creative process. This week sees a earlier date, just because I enjoy being different oh so much!
Last week we discussed the importance of how you present your information to your visitors, and this week we shall expand upon those already mentioned while mentioning new one that will be discussed in our next post.
Think of How the User Will View It
As designers our main job is to be able to convey the core message through strategic design, well that also includes the information too. You can’t spend 10+ hours, hypothetically, on how the user will approach the design aspects of the site and then turn around and not give the information’s presentations a second glance.
You have to give as much time and energy into the design around the content, as you do in how you actually go about displaying your content. That means looking at it from a view of, “Now do you really think I’m going to read that?” Then figuring out ways to turn that into, “It doesn’t seem like much.”
Consider the Eye Strain the Line Length Is Causing
This is a quite forgotten consideration, which is quite odd considering how grid happy this current era of web design is in. Nonetheless, a paragraph’s line length is a great indicator of how often of not your content will either be skipped or read. Now there is no magical line length that will work for every design, there are a lot of factors that go into this. However, you only really need to focus on a few for optimal results.
– Amount of Information
– The Grid Space Allotment for Your Paragraphs
– The users your trying to attract
Think about yourself as the viewer and what you see when you look at it
By putting yourself in the hands of the reader, you get a better understanding about what information is really important and isn’t. You always have to do this because putting yourself into the shoes of the likely type of person who will visit your site gives a better understanding of what is needed to convey your ideal message in a way that is very appealing.
Keep it short and sweet, always
Nobody wants to feel drained after reading anything on a website, keep it simple and they’ll get more from it and browse around your site more as well.