Web Design Practices

by corriehaffly

People designing ecommerce sites: Have you seen webdesignpractices.com? This site has been around for a while, but I didn’t come across it until recently while we were kicking around ways to improve the checkout system on our site. (Unfortunately the “ecommerce checkout flow” part of Heidi’s Adkisson’s research isn’t out yet, but I did find the site extremely interesting.)

Adkisson surveyed dozens of major ecommerce sites to try to determine if there was some kind of common practices across these sites that might define some kind of “defacto design standards” (the idea being that if 99% of web sites have a logo in the top left corner that links to the home page, it would be a good idea for you to do that, too, because everyone is used to it). She precurses her findings with the warning that “the data presented on this site are intended to inform design decisions, not dictate them. Common practice does not necessarily equate with best practice�and the relationship between consistency and usability on the Web is remains a lightly researched area.”

On the “user” side, a related study by Michael Bernard specifically looked at placement of ecommerce objects and where people expected them to be. This was done a few years ago, and I’m personally a little bit curious about how much things have changed since then. For example, Bernard found that most people expect a “login” form or link to be in the top left of a web page. I don’t think that’s true for me (maybe because I’m used to Amazon)… then again, I wasn’t the one who did a 300-person study.

Anyway, I hope that some of you find these web sites interesting and useful, as I did…

(And now, a response to the last blog’s comments)

As I’m writing this, there are 27 comments to my last post, “The Skeleton in My Closet.” Good heavens! I’d like to think that it’s because this blog is super-popular in its first week of existence…. but I think it really just turns out that I wrote something on the line of being controversial — or just plain stupid — and apparently enough people wanted to contribute their two cents and “show me how it’s done.”

Thanks to ALL of you who took the time to post a comment, including those of you who bluntly (or tactfully) said that I was wrong. Especially thanks to xDev and Xenon_54 for sharing those helpful links to examples and tutorials of cross-browser friendly, CSS-driven designs.

Even now, I’m still not so sure how to respond to your many comments. I willingly admit that I’m not an expert in CSS-driven design (i.e., no tables), which is a good reason why I’m not writing the DHTML/CSS column, and in fact am learning quite a lot from people’s comments to the last blog. So, maybe I’ll hold off for now and in six months or so you’ll hear back from me with any revisions to my “I still use tables” statement.

For now, I will try to stick to my non-using-tables areas of expertise, which may involve 1) tips and tutorials for graphics programs, 2) making ugly web sites look better, and 3) trends and opinions on design/usability (which is what I started with above). And even as an “expert columnist,” which is what SitePoint calls me, I know that there’s still a lot to learn, so I ask in advance for your patience and helpful comments!

To help me keep organized, if you want to respond to my response to the last blog, I’d really appreciate it if you go back to the previous blog and comment there. If you have comments about the two research sites above, please post them here.

Or not. It’s up to you.

Share and Enjoy: