When web surfing, you come across many websites. Some you may ooh and awe over due to their beauty, but then you can’t find your way around. Other sites you come across are just so dull and boring that you can’t stay and read the content. Then, you hit a site that feels like it was built for you and it has so much beauty with functionality that you stay there for a while. It is important to understand why some websites work and some do not. Effective websites don’t happen by accident. They are built with purpose and methodology.
One such method to create a stable website is called the Triangle Method.
The Triangle Method, also called the three aspects of the website, is vital to make your website stand out to the other sites on the Internet. Without understanding the Triangle Method, you can kiss your content, navigation, and design goodbye. To avoid making mistakes on what you want for your clients, you first must understand what will work on a website and why.
The Triangle Method of a website is built on 3 aspects: information, form, and function.
The content is the foundational building block of a website. This information must be written with a purpose. It should address the features and goals of your practice, but also promote the benefits for your visitors. In general, you are providing credible information to your visitors and guiding them to what you want them to do. For example, your practice’s goal is to generate leads, in which your must drive them to contact you. In this case you may have a mini contact form and lots of buttons that say “click here to contact us”, and even have many links in the content for easy access to get the visitors to contact you.
Writing for web is different than any other marketing media materials. Web-based information is written based on user readability. There are special writing strategies that are taken into consideration on how users read on the Internet. The structure of the information is based on scanning, keywords, sentence structures, bulleted lists, and text links.
Through eye tracking research, people tend to scan a website’s content until they find certain keywords. Scanning of an article is proven to hold attention on a site. Most often users scan words before actually reading the sentence is about 9 to 12 words per line. Having massive amount of text does not yield the intended result. This makes it hard for a reader to read more as it strains the eyes.
Once finding the keywords, there is a transition to actually reading the sentences. Effective website sentences are shorter in length. This also causes to paragraphs to be more concise and to the point. Bulleted lists are where appropriate to break up paragraphs and help guide users to see what is important in the content. In the content, links are specifically placed within certain keywords to help guide users throughout the website to maintain their purpose on visiting the website and reaching the goal.
Information is a way of communicating to your users. This communication that the business is offering is used to set the message and define the interaction. The step the client takes is by using the content and takes the goal that is presented there.
There are many ways to present credible information and communicate to the visitors; some are seen on websites as:
A good example of this is providing lots of information about the services you offer and how you stand out from your competitors. You definitely need to have support documents to back you up, and having before and after galleries or testimonials provides your proof of uniqueness and quality. The client will most likely take the opportunity to fill out the contact form or call. Now, on your end of the business is to make sure that you respond and keep leading this client back to your site with more information. It will show that you understand them and are also giving the opportunity to brand the company, give familiarity, provide relationship, and communicate with the client.
Once the purpose and content of your website is defined, then the form can be established. The form of a website is commonly referred to as the design and layout. Website design is a way of branding your company and services. Everything from the color pallet, textures, depth, logo and especially the imagery, helps brand a website. One main goal in branding a website and creating form is to evoke an emotional response.
Elements of form on a website are identified through:
The imagery and colors help evoke the emotion that you want the user to take. Emotional responses can occur through the layout. By providing a clean layout, images, colors that “pop” and changing text sizes help guide the viewer to specific areas or to take a certain action. It should also pertain to your client’s experience. The client should be able to identify what services your company offers and be able to find your logo for identification.
The design and emotion helps the user to understand what the focus of your business. In most part, this helps guide the user to take an action. For instance, you have a button that is for a special offer and it is really spiced up with some graphics, your user is more likely to click on the button versus plain text.
The text of a website is sometimes the most forgotten part of the form. By adding color to the text or using a dark tone of color versus black can enhance a site by far. Identify links through color helps guide the web user around and know what is considered clickable. The hardest part of typography on the web is keeping a selected amount of different font sizes consistent.
Color choices can create a powerful impact on how you want your site to be viewed. By combining complimentary colors, a website can become inviting and easy on the eyes to read. Colors and embellishments can also enhance how a picture is placed in the layout.
Studies show that users are willing to stay if a website is attractive in appearance versus a website that is purely based on content. It is hard to stay focused on a website that is overwhelming and/or under- designed. But, creating a beautiful form is not all about the pictures. Pretty pictures don’t make the website. Appealing imagery is very crucial to balance the pictures and content. The graphics that are used in website should pertain to what the content is stating; otherwise your user may become confused. Attractiveness of a web design can occur through the layout. Having a clean layout that allows easy flow of content and eye movement is what keeps the user on a website. One rule to keep in mind is if your design looks great but is hard to figure out, your visitors will be gone.
Function is an aspect that sometimes gets forgotten in many websites, but it is also just as important. Without function, your site would lack interactivity and users would be lost on how to access different areas of your site.
Functions are considered as such elements of:
Similar to Form, function’s components and layout is important to how the user is using and viewing the website.
When considering what you want in your website, consistency and being user friendly is the key. As simple as that sounds, many companies forget what their goal is and just jazz up the site with design. Then, their clients don’t know how to get around. The flip side to this statement is that the way we use the internet has evolved through the years. There is so much interactivity you can add to a site that it is not just about the navigation, but also can be for example, videos.
When examining a website, the focus should not only be on the layout but how the first time user is going to be able to navigate through the site without any help. This means giving proper names to your navigation buttons and even the buttons used to call the individual’s attention. If the function is not consistent, the user would describe this as an “ill layout” and would deviate away from the site to find an easier one to use.
Now that the user is viewing your site, there needs to be the reminder of how they user is viewing the website by it’s the functionality. This is done through two methods, information is focused or it is tasked focused. What does this mean? Well, informative sites provide info to the user but lacks limitability. These sites are usually for educating purposes or government/public provided information. Task related websites are where the user can interact with information and then accomplish a task. Most commonly this is seen as Google-maps. The sites that can provide information and also create interactivity through videos, Google-maps, print this page features, scheduling and contacting methods are consider Hybrid. Functionality allows the individuals to play and experience the uniqueness that is put into the website. It also helps build relationship through the interaction. People tend to stay at a site longer if there is stuff to do.
The great advantages to functionality are that the way users are using the website has dramatically improved throughout the years. There is still one key of knowledge to remember is that each user is an individual. Not all people are web-savvy. When internet first became available worldwide, there was a limited amount of data. The knowledge to apply interaction was limited to simple coding. Years ago, having video on the internet was unheard of and Google Map didn’t exist. As our technology advanced and grew, the capabilities of what the Internet and website can do also developed.
Websites do age over time and become “old feeling”. It is important to balance the information, form, and function. Without balance and understanding what creates quality sites, your website will become out-dated. Taking time to watch your site develop the Triangle Method is vital to make your website stand out from the other sites on the internet.
It is now time to take action on creating a website that will fulfill your goals. Is your website built on a stable foundation?
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Some of the websites have been edited aesthetically by other Website Design Professionals. The images that are viewable on this site are kept to its original. All projects are completed by Lisa Forgan. Click here for a sitemap of the site. If you have any questions about SilverFox Interactive / Lisa Forgan, please contact me.