Sublime

Given the power of searching and the number of people who prefer searching to browsing, unless a site is very small and very well organized, every page should have either a search box or a link to a search page. And unless there’s very little reason to search your site, it should be a search box.

In all the time I’ve spent watching people use the Web, the thing that has struck me most is the difference between how we think people use Web sites and how they actually use them. When we’re creating sites, we act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading all of our carefully crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things,

Most of this book has been about building clarity into Web sites: making sure that users can understand what it is they’re looking at—and how to use it—without undue effort. Is it clear to people? Do they “get it”? But there’s another important component to usability: doing the right thing—being considerate of the user. Besides “Is my site clear?”

Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind

Marc Andreessen

volutionary site redesign (ESR), where new design, layout, and content elements are tested and your website gradually evolves toward the best-performing ideal. In an ESR redesign, you prioritize your most important pages and page templates and test new layouts, designs, and content with controlled testing. You get all the benefits of a new site des

Whatever the visitor’s precise goal may be, the one thing is always to answer one simple question: “Am I in the right place?” That’s it.

Steve used demo reviews to judge for himself whether features met this basic usability standard. When he gave me the specific feedback to remove one of the two keyboards from my iPad demo, it had a cascade effect toward greater simplicity.

Good taglines convey differentiation and a clear benefit. Jakob Nielsen has suggested that a really good tagline is one that no one else in the world could use except you, and I think it’s an excellent way to look at it.