THINKing

Dropping Breadcrumbs

How are you helping your visitors find their way around your website? Do you have a good grasp of what visitors are looking for when they visit you? Do you provide them with visual references so they’ll know where they are in your site at all times? Are you leaving them some breadcrumbs to follow? This is something we struggle with when we are designing sites.

I just got a note from Michael Douma, CEO of IDEA about a study they completed on factors that improve online experiences. One of the most fascinating findings from the executive summary was this,

Designers are overly optimistic about visitors’ ability to maintain orientation. In the survey, the ability to maintain orientation was defined as visitors’ ability to know “where they are, where they can go next, and which pages are related.” About 70% of designers believe that visitors are almost always able to maintain orientation. That drops to about 30% when non-profit organizations express their view. In contrast, only about 10% of visitors report being able to almost always maintain their orientation. Fewer than 5% report that they tend to get lost frequently. Said another way, your visitors don’t know your site as well as you do, so make sure it is obvious how to find information through meaningful menus, prompts, and not too much clutter.

There is some solid information in the report (pdf) for those involved in web design and development.

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• It’s Always The Perfect Day To Send Email
• Customer Retention
• 11 Ways To Promote Your Website
• Creativity 2010 – Week #37