Usability Views Article Details  home | timeline | recent | popular | e-reports | userati | books | about  Jakob Nielsen on Larrys World (19 Sep 2005) We have come a long way since the web revolutionised access to information. Some of the principles of good web-design are fairly well known, but as we browse the web we see the same mistakes committed over and over again. Examples include freezing the font size, bad choice of colours for text and background (such as green text over black background) and playing audio on the homepage. Too many websites have gaudy flash animations and pictures on the homepage which do not convey any information but degrade the usability of the website. To design a usable website, designers need to think how the user is going to use their website rather than present him with what they want him to see. Users will just glance through your page initially so it is necessary to have concise and meaningful headlines to attract the user's attention. All the in-depth information need not be cramped on a single page. The interested user will click on hyperlinks to get in-depth information about the news item. Pictures should be used only when necessary and there should be a balance between text and pictures on any webpage. Article URL: http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail670.html   17.02    (Jakob Nielsen, Usability Expert)   Read 22 more articles from IT Conversations sorted by date, popularity, or title. Next Article: Sarah Horton     This site is a labour of love built by Chris McEvoy