[Sigia-l] the lesser importance of home pages -> more splashpagefun?

[Christopher Fahey]

> Here's a "minimalist" design favored by Jared, in his own words:
> 
> >> http://www.mcmaster-carr.com (My all-time favorite. This site tests
> >> tremendously well with its users and most designers HATE it. I mean,
> >> visceral, OH-MY-GOD "How could anyone use it" hate it. Yet the users
just
> >> love it, usability tests rock, and site revenues are great.)

If designers have a negative reaction to the McMaster site (and I'm assuming
that Jared was talking about real life professional designers and not the
perrenial straw man "primadonna designer type"), I doubt it would be because
they doubt the page's *usability*. The page's visual design surely lacks a
lot of 'style' and general prettyness, and it doesn't take a graphic design
diva to see that. I think that, however, without changing the content of the
page or the concept behind it, the typography and layout can probably be
improved under the care of a more skilled graphic designer. A designer's
visceral reaction to the page may well be limited to that, and not be based
on some alleged disregard for usability. Heck, most designers I know would
love to be given the McMaster wireframe to build a visual design from,
because they could focus on visual elegance instead of the usual
jigsaw-puzzle exercise we IAs force them to go through, having to fit a
dozen different useless page elements above the fold. 

Even though it has a million links filling a huge scrolling page, I think
the McMaster site is a great example of home page minimalism. The trick is
that it doesn't have any other superfluous *content* or *features* on the
front page. No mission statement, no headline news, no blogs or podcasts, no
featured products, no season's greetings, no helpful tips. I'd argue that it
pretty closely meets my criteria:
1) Succintly tell the user what this site is: 
    --> The McMasters logo and the "420,000 Products" banner at the top does
the trick. McMasters customers know who McMasters is, and the page confirms
pretty quickly "You can order any McMasters stuff here". Check.
2) Let them search: 
    --> Check.
3) Provide huge obvious link(s) to the most likely place the user is going
to. The fewer the better: 
    --> Check, but... for McMasters, the "fewer the better" part is a little
fuzzy because basically the front page is a full directory. This is
appropriate because McMaster's customers could be looking for just about
anything - the distribution of product needs is probably pretty broad. The
directory is a great solution.
4) Provide a clear navigation.
    --> Check: "meta" features are listed at the top, and the
productdirectory, as any user would easily recall, is right back on the home
page. 

There's an old rule that mothers used to tell their daughters before going
out on the town: Remove one piece of jewelry before leaving the house
because in your excitement you probably put on something that pushed your
look over the top. I'd say for designers and information architects, the
analogous rule could even be "remove half of the features from your home
page". Jason Fried at 37 Signals recently recommended that, in 2006, web
strategists should think about cutting the number of *pages* on their site
in half
(<http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/a_challenge_for_2006_cut_your_site_in_h
alf.php>). <http://LessLink.com/half/>

All good ideas.

-Cf

Christopher Fahey
____________________________
Behavior
http://www.behaviordesign.com




  


> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-bounces at asis.org 
> [mailto:sigia-l-bounces at asis.org] On Behalf Of Listera
> Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 2:54 PM
> To: SIGIA-L
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] the lesser importance of home pages -> 
> more splashpagefun?
> 
> Lyle Kantrovich:
> 
> > It's called minimalist design.  Most "usability folks" that 
> run tests
> > are very much for it.
> 
> Here's a "minimalist" design favored by Jared, in his own words:
> 
> >> http://www.mcmaster-carr.com (My all-time favorite. This site tests
> >> tremendously well with its users and most designers HATE 
> it. I mean,
> >> visceral, OH-MY-GOD "How could anyone use it" hate it. Yet 
> the users just
> >> love it, usability tests rock, and site revenues are great.)
> 
> > Please quit smearing "usability testers".
> 
> Why?
> 
> > Just because you put a smiley after it doesn't make it humor or less
> > accusatory.  
> 
> I accuse them of all sorts of things frequently, with or 
> without smileys.
> 
> > Featuritis is something most usability folks fight against 
> every day.
> 
> So?
>  
> > One of Nielsen's heuristics is "Aesthetic and minimalist design:
> > Dialogues should not...
> 
> What dialogs have to do with homepage design (the subject of 
> this thread)
> escapes me. As is the notion that anyone should pay any 
> attention to Nielsen
> on anything concerning aesthetics and design.
>  
> > Useful isn't equal to usable.
> 
> In design terms, that *is* humorous.
> 
> ----
> Ziya
> 
> "Innovate as a last resort."
> 
> 
> 
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