Web 2.0 Blog

10 Blog Usability Guidelines

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

As someone who has studied usability analysis, I've come up with 10 usability guideline which all new bloggers should abide by to help generate subscribers and interest in their site. Clean, simple design - With the hundreds of widgets and scripts now available, a lot of bloggers clutter up their sidebar with numerous bits of functionality, which is fine as long as you don't go over the top. The user is most likely reading your blog to find information which is written in the posts - not the sidebar. Linking - You should insert many links across your posts to encourage users ... Read Article »

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Gestalt Law of Proximity in Web Design

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

Including Gestalt laws of user psychology can go a long way towards ensuring that your website caters for your user's usability needs as they navigate through it. Psychologists have determined that the brain acts in a certain way when perceiving objects on a computer screen, and knowing this can help ensure your site is more concerned about the user's needs than your own. In the next few days I'll go through each gestalt law; Proximity, Similarity, Continuity and Closure, one by one to show how they can be advantageous to website design. I'll start with proximity. Proximity This law refers to the observation ... Read Article »

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Usability Vs SEO

Thursday, March 13th, 2008

This article is an investigation into whether search engine optimisation and usability are compatible, enabling a user to find a website in a search engine, and then find what they’re looking for once they’ve found it. Usability and search engine optimisation are both of fundamental importance when developing websites on for the Internet. SEO should be given precedence in the design of a website to improve the chances of users actually finding the site in the first place. Likewise, usability should be of high priority so that users aren’t put off using the site within seconds of finding it. ... Read Article »

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