ADD A VISUAL APPEAL AND PERSUASIVE POWER TO YOUR WEBSITE

-




Research suggests visitors can decide ultra-fast on whether they like a site, not in two seconds, but 50 milliseconds (that ’s 0.05 of a second). Summarizing the research by Gitte Lindgaard ( Lindgaard et al., 2006 ) of Carleton University in Ottawa, published in the Journal of Behaviour and Information Technology , says: ‘The lasting effect of first impressions is known to  sychologists as the ‘ halo effect ’: if you can snare people with an attractive design, they are

more likely to overlook other minor faults with the site, and may rate its actual content more favourably . This is because of “cognitive bias ”, People enjoy being right, so continuing

to use a website that gave a good first impression helps to “ prove ” to themselves that they made a good initial decision ’ .
E-CONSULTANCY (2007) RECOMMENDS THESE APPROACHES TO TYPOGRAPHY BEST PRACTICE:
1-      Use a consistent typography throughout a site. This will typically be enforced through cascading stylesheets.

2-      Limit the use of different font types and sizes.

3-     San-serif font styles such as Arial or Verdana tend to work best on the web, as they look sharper on the screen and are therefore easier to scan and read (unlike print where the reverse is true). Sans-serif is by far the most popular approach online. But a visit to the New York Times (NYT.com) shows that the use of serifed fonts can make the site appear more distinguished – it affects the site personality.

4-      Left justified text works best in web browsers and is best for legibility.

5-     The widespread use of images for rendering text in headlines and navigation is today generally discouraged for accessibility and search engine optimization reasons (search engines read text, not images), but exceptions includes text used in branding, promotions and certain sites where an immersive experience is required.

6-      Where images are used for text captions, alternative text commonly known as ‘ alt tags ’ should be provided for accessibility reasons.

7-      Create separate design requirements and a test schedule for the rendering of fonts in different browsers.

 CHECKLIST FOR EXCELLENCE IN WEB TYPOGRAPHY

1-    Never use underline in body text as a reader will think it ’ s a hyperlink.
2-    Avoid extensive use of italics as it is difficult to read on screen, but they can add variety.
3-    Agree a standard for capitalization of headlines and link text. Generally, sentence case: ‘Amazing new product released ’ is best since it is most scannable. Title case ‘Amazing New Product Released ’ and all caps is ugly (and more difficult for readers to scan). However, all caps can be attention grabbing if selectively used.
4-     Headlines longer than three or four words may work best for SEO purposes, so ensure font type size is not too large to support this or allow the design to support wrapping or sub-headlines.
5-    Remember that many web browser users will increase their type sizes, so check that the design renders gracefully as type is enlarged (at least by a small amount).
6-     The difference between heading point sizes has a distinctive effective on design. Use a small difference between them for a smooth effect and a large difference for a more distinct design.
7-    Where possible, avoid pages where the text content stretches across the full width of the browser, especially in fluid layout designs. Splitting the content into columns will vastly increase readability and is more in line with how people read articles and content in newspapers and magazines.
8-    Standard fonts should be specified in the stylesheet(s), which allows a esigner/developer to specify the font order in which the web browser should try and render the size. Using CSS also allows for simple and quick site-wide changes to the fonts displayed.
9-    sIFR (or Scalable Inman Flash Replacement) is available for implementing non-standard fonts in site headings. sIFR ( http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/ ) is an SEO friendly approach for using more imaginative typography on sites. For headings which are important for SEO and the main application of sIFR, the text is still specified as _ h1 _ , _ h2 _ , etc.
References:
eMarketing eXcellence 3rd 2008


Review abopress.blogspot.com on alexa.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Benefits of SMS Marketing for Small Business

-
Image
Tweet Benefits of SMS Marketing for Small Business Compared to other forms of advertising, SMS marketing provides the lowest cost and highest return rate that is crucial in today’s shrinking economy and budgets. Most have cut back on traditional marketing due to costs. But that just drives down your sales. SMS marketing scales with your campaign and sales growth making the ROI higher the larger you grow, not the other way around. SMS marketing is also permission based. The customer has given you permission to contact them through our SMS platform. Customers that opt-in to receive information are most likely to buy over someone who receives a direct mail piece, reads your ad in the newspaper or hears your ad on the radio. Other main advantages of SMS marketing over traditional advertising: Cost:   The larger your campaign gets, the lower the costs become on a per customer basis. Reach: Your customer’s always have their mobile phone with them. No matter where
Read more

SETUP AND CREATE YOUR BUSINESS MARKETING BLOG

-
Image
Tweet Web logs or ‘ blogs ’ are best known as an easy method of publishing personal web pages which are online journals or diaries. But the power of business blogs, which are created by people within an organization, is often underestimated. Business blogs can be created by individuals, but they are often best with features from different columnists on different types of topics. This way, different columnists can specialize on different features or viewpoints just as for a magazine. If you think this way, they are a means of making an e-newsletter more interactive and more topical. Blogging software is incredibly good value, with many free tools. The following options can be considered when setup your blog: 1-         Moderation : Either open or closed to comments, with or without a moderator. Star rating of posts is a good option. 2-        Frequency : Five to twenty posts per month would be typical for a company site unless posted in multiple categories for a new sit
Read more

De Kare-Silver’s electronic shopping test

-
Image
Tweet Consumer electronic shopping analysis using De Kare-Silver’ factors that should be considered in the electronic shopping test: 1- The Characteristics of the product. a. Does the product need to be physically tried? or b. Touched before it is bought? 2- The degree of confidence and Familiarity  To which degree the consumer recognizes and trusts the product or brand. 3- The attributes of the consumer:  - Technology accessibility  - Skills available   - Willingness to shop for a product in a traditional retail environment To measure the suitability of buying a product online ranked as below and given a score out of 50: Typical results from the evaluation, where products are scored out of 50 for suitability for electronic commerce, are: - Books (38/50)  - Travel (31/50) - Groceries (27/50) - Mortgages (15/50) The product achieved a score higher than 20 has good potential as per  De Kare-Silver, and he suggested also that the companies m
Read more