Brains Agree: The Case for Website Usability Guidelines

I admit I am a minimalist when it comes to website design. This works to the benefit of the majority of our clients. Because the messages, issues and actions related to many of our clients' communications goals are extremely complex, I design extremely simple websites. The idea being that my clients need their visitors to concentrate on the task, information or action at hand, and not be swayed by anything that may distract them from their purpose. For example, I have designed sites that:

• educate visitors on the importance of establishing a statewide trauma care network, and the need to encourage legislators to support funding for it;
• explain the necessity of supporting Open Heart Services Certificate-of-Need application within a community and its connection to top-of-the-line care for individuals and their families; and
• engage citizens in a multi-year environmental transportation study that includes input, research and reports from hundreds of sources.

While my strategy is to declutter and focus so visitors can begin to grasp the complexity of the content at hand, this strategy works just as well when you want a visitor to focus on a key message, new product line or service highlight. The idea being: if elements in your site are not working for whatever the goal of the page is -- they are working against it. Here's an article I recently read that helps explain how our brains work and how website design works (or doesn't) in relation to our brains' natural function.

From Web Marketing Today, Brains Agree: The Case for Website Usability Guidelines, Todd Follansbee, WebMarketingResources.net - Apr 12, 2011