Understand your visitors’ expectations and deliver a better Web experience

Support your visitors’ mental models

The advertising business is built on the idea of breaking convention. But being different just for the sake of being different can be disastrous on the Web. If 9 out of 10 companies in your industry include critical information in an “About Us” section on their websites, then your visitors have more than likely formed a mental roadmap to this content. Trying to differentiate your site from this mental model will only confuse and irritate your visitors. Let the content itself differentiate you through the written voice, compelling design, rich media, and yes, through the unexpected. But you should respect the roadmaps to content that visitors have built through their experiences online.

It is possible to identify key mental models that may exist in your industry, without the expense of usability or preference studies. Review the sites of 5-10 of your closest competitors; document the patterns that reveal consistencies in content organization, layout and design, navigation and labeling.

It is important to maintain a consistent sense of place on your site. Today’s search engines will often take visitors to your second-level pages, not your home page. Every portion of your site should answer the questions, “Where am I?” and “What is available to me on this site?”

It is also important to promote your content, NOT your navigation. Research has proven that website users have adapted an ability to tune out navigation, sidebars, and any extraneous information (especially ads) in order to focus on the content areas of a page.

The large page titles, staged in a field of white in the section header, ensure that Cornell University’s visitors have a strong sense of place. This clarity could be further emphasized by including links to other student life content.