Making Better Websites

General Notes

• The logo should be in the upper left corner of the site.  It should be a link to the home page of the site.
• Include a tag line summarizing what the company/site does.
• Make homepage clearly different than rest of site *
• Use imperative language for mandatory tasks, ex. 'enter a city'.
• Do not use 'click here' for link names.
• Use icons only if they are extremely obvious/recognizable.
• Limit window titles to no more than 7/8 words.
• Use relative font sizes, not absolute sizes.
• Explain the benefits of registration.
• Make important buttons stand out.
• Use descriptive labels and supporting text for buttons.
• Avoid reset buttons.
• Adjust settings on the server to allow for common typos and misspellings for URLs (for example ww instead of www). Setup wildcard domains (*.yourdomain.com).
• Eliminate extraneous navigation elements during a multi-step process such as a checkout or registration.  Avoid distracting the user.

Search Engines

• Search input box should allow 25-30 characters
• Do not label the search input box, just attach a search button.
• Plan for imperfect searchers
• Study previous search results to identify problems
• If the search returns an avalanche of results, offer means of narrowing results.
• If no results return, offer an easy way to expand results
• Explain how search works, give examples and tips.

Optimize Your Site

• Use sprites as often as possible.
• Concatenate and mini your css (2 max per page)
• Concatenate and mini your js (2 max per page)
• Optimize all images
• Load only what you need at first.
• Add tel link on responsive sites to all phone numbers.
• Optimal typographic measure (45-90 characters per line) - it makes reading easier on all lines.
• Apparently, there is minimal cache of size in RAM, 10K on some. So the amount of 'stuff' in the site - html, images, code, etc. means there are slow downs and complexitiy in loading on mobile devices. So if you support with moble first with your design, then you can be more careful with what you do with your site. [source]
   

Homepage Usability

Here are some tips I learned from reading Homepage Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir.

• Put logo in the upper let.
• Include a tagline that summarizes what the company does/site does.
• Include an About Us section (or better yet, About ).
• Use imperative language for mandatory tasks
• Do not use 'click here' for link names.
• Never name a category 'links', qualify what type of links.
• If a link launches a PDF, tell the user.
• Use only icons that are extremely obvious and recognizable.
• Search input box should allow for 25-30 characters.
• Do not label the search box, just attach a search button.
• Window titles should be no more that 7/8 words long.
• Do not use splash screens.
• Use relative font sizes, not absolute sizes.
• Include a privacy policy - establish trust with your visitors.
• Only include Help if necessary and if so place it in the upper right.