From the course: User Experience for Web Design
Why people leave sites
From the course: User Experience for Web Design
Why people leave sites
- In the same way as there are things that help people decide to stay on your site. Clear navigation, informative headings and summaries, and so on. There are also things that make them quickly leave. It's not hard to work out what these things are. You've probably been frustrated with them yourself in the past. The biggest issues are things that stop visitors from finding the information they're looking for. It's amazing how many sites hide the information that visitors want to find. The hiding happens in several different ways. One is using nonsensical or technical product names in navigation. Who knows the difference between an XY200 and an XY300. Another is using puns or teasers in your link text so that visitors don't know what they'll get if they click through. Another way to hide information is by using technical jargon instead of plain language. Remember, even if you're running a site for specialists in a particular field, those specialists all start off as newbies at some point. If you present visitors with a wall of text, they won't be able to scan it and quickly work out how relevant it is. If instead, you split it up with headings, subheadings, and bullet points, you help people to quickly read through the important parts to see if they are where they need to be. Another big turnoff that users report is overly distracting advertising. This is obviously a big trade off for you as a site designer. On one hand, you might want to make money from the content you've produced. On the other, you need to ensure that people stay around long enough on the site to create the ad impressions that you need. The balance will be different depending upon what type of site you have. If there are many other people offering similar sites, then your visitors have other choices to find the information they need, and they'll go to sites that don't distract them too much. We'll cover each of these points and what you can do about them later in the course. For now, I want to emphasize that your visitors are looking for information. The content you give them needs to make sense to them, not just to you. They might not have the same level of knowledge about the topics you cover or the same level of interest in them as you do. You need to make sure your content speaks clearly to people right from the beginning. The back button is just one click away, and you don't often get a second chance. To help people in their quest for information, you need a simple, consistent and standard design.
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