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Keep It Simple
Simplicity is a two-fold concept: your design should be simple in appearance, as well as simple to use. While these would seem to go hand-in-hand, it's not uncommon to see a simple-looking site that's difficult to use (with confusing or broken links, hover-surprises, etc.)
Think of textbooks -- they really are the closest semblance to a web site. They're neatly organized into chapters, with appendices and indices and glossaries for further detail. These simplify the usage of the book.
For example, when you're reading the glossary of your European History textbook, you have different expectations than when you're reading, say, Chapter Seven: Pre-Imperialist Britain. You expect to see an alphabetized listing of terms, and beside each term you expect a definition.
Same goes for your website. You might be fortunate enough to have a tiny niche that needs no further categorization. If all your site does is sell Philadelphia Raiders T-shirts, simplicity is practically built-in.
But say you've got a history section, a stats section, a recent news section, and a fan forum. And within each of these sections you have dozens more pages -- news archives, individual player statistics, etc.
Would it make sense to include a link to each of your site's hundred pages ON EVERY PAGE?
The answer is no, yet we see it frequently with submenus. As if the reader is going to jump from a specific statistics page to a T-shirt order page to a news post from last year. And maybe they will -- but the fact remains that it's simpler to let them select the new section they want from four or five choices than the specific page they want from a hundred or more.
That said, let's look at the example from IGN, where I got frustrated recently.
(These links will open in new windows.)
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| I was checking out screenshots from a new Simpsons game. After glancing at one in particular, I was ready to move on. I went to hit 'Next', and couldn't find it easily. |
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| My browser can be a bit daunting to use at first glance - I've customized my Links' icons, and installed the wondrous Google toolbar. But you quickly learn to ignore that kind of thing. |
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| So I looked where you would expect to see "Next" links. But they weren't there. |
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| Okay, well, check the stuff right above the image, then. |
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| Now your eyes can get pretty frantic -- do they have a "Next" button? |
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| With a couple small changes, I think the site's simplicity is greatly improved. All it took was some rearranging. |
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