Week 2 Reading

In chapter three, we learn about designing for billboards and that most audiences are more likely to scan rather than read. It's important to create a clear visual hierarcy and break up the pages so if the audience is going to scan, they'll at least absorb the most important information. It is also important to know your conventions so when you're creating a design, your audience can find what they're looking for faster and wont lose interest. Especially in web design, it's important for users to be able to navigate a web page even if they don't totally understand everything. Web conventions are there for a reason, so if you're not going to use them, you better make sure to replace it with something equally clear or that it adds something of value. Other important factors of web page design include making clickable things very obvious and cutting down on the noise. Even something as easy as lightening line weight can help with a design.

In chapter four, we learn about how users like mindless activity and when they're searching for something on a web page, they usually don't want to think about it. There are two ways to play it; you can either use the rule that it shouldn't take more than three clicks to get somewhere or, if it takes more, it should be very simple. Think of it like playing Twenty Question, it's a mindless choice. When creating links, make it as clear as possible. For example, if someone wants to buy something for their home office, make it clear where they can find something if you have a link for home and for office.

Chapter five teaches us to omit words. Writing should be concise and should not containt unnecessary words. On most web pages, a lot of the words are just taking up space. One thing to eliminate from web pages is instructions. No one is going to read them because they want to be able to navigate the page without them. Don't use a lot of words when few will get your point across.


Here is a very similar article that reinforces these topics:
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062.html

Here is an article about someone "writing without words":
http://designmind.frogdesign.com/articles/numbers/writing-without-words.html#/images/dm/numbers/writingwithoutwords_01.gif

Here is a website with various webpage designs without words:
http://webwithoutwords.com/