To help users quickly find what they need, anchor text should stand out from the body content and accurately describe the page that it refers to.
via Writing Hyperlinks: Salient, Descriptive, Start with Keyword.
Tag: web
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Apps vs The Web
An app is a specialized tool, like a wrist watch. Apps thrive on mobile because people on the go have short bursts of time to accomplish tasks. Waiting in line at a bank, you only have a few seconds to check your mail.
via Apps vs The Web.
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Seriously, Just Make a JSFiddle
Has anyone ever asked you for help troubleshooting some combination of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, and they copy and paste the entirety of all the files into an email or forum post? Its super common, and so consider this an intervention. When you are having trouble figuring something out:
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Responsive Web Design
Working on the web, however, is a wholly different matter. Our work is defined by its transience, often refined or replaced within a year or two. Inconsistent window widths, screen resolutions, user preferences, and our users’ installed fonts are but a few of the intangibles we negotiate when we publish our work, and over the years, we’ve become incredibly adept at doing so.
Clients say the darnedest things. The other day, one scoffed, “Anyone who’s looking at our website on a stupid little phone screen probably isn’t our customer anyway.”
Summary:
Once users reject a design technique due to repeated bad experiences it’s almost impossible to use it for good because people will avoid it every time.
via Can Hated Design Elements Be Made to Work? (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox).
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Daring Fireball: Title Junk
The recent hubbub about Delicious got me thinking about bookmarking in general, and brought to mind a long-standing irritation: poorly designed web page titles.
Summary: Showing summaries of many articles is more likely to draw in users than providing full articles, which can quickly exhaust reader interest.
via Corporate Blogs: Front Page Structure Jakob Nielsens Alertbox.
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Scrolling and Attention
Today, users will scroll. However, you shouldnt ignore the fold and create endless pages for two reasons:
Long pages continue to be problematic because of users limited attention span. People prefer sites that get to the point and let them get things done quickly. Besides the basic reluctance to read more words, scrolling is extra work.
The real estate above the fold is more valuable than stuff below the fold for attracting and keeping users attention.
So, yes, you can put information below the fold rather than limit yourself to bite-sized pages.
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A Form of Madness – Dive Into HTML5
Everybody knows about web forms, right? Make a <form>, a few <input type=”text”> elements, maybe an <input type=”password”>, finish it off with an <input type=”submit”> button, and you’re done.