Eye tracking, the process of measuring eye movements to test how people read websites, is not a new concept. More importantly, the results of these tests provided a strong guideline for a creative and effective Web design.

Unfortunately, many Web sites have either failed to understand this concept or ignored it for the sake of creativity. I hope this post will help you understand its significance.

The F-Shaped Pattern
The multiple tests conducted by Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen show that majority of users follow a dominant reading pattern resembling the letter F. Here are some samples from Nielsen and its interpretations:

Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper part of the content area. This initial element forms the F’s top bar.

Next, users move down the page a bit and then read across in a second horizontal movement that typically covers a shorter area than the previous movement. This additional element forms the F’s lower bar.

Finally, users scan the content’s left side in a vertical movement. Sometimes this is a fairly slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid stripe on an eyetracking heatmap. Other times users move faster, creating a spottier heatmap. This last element forms the F’s stem.

It basically means that the attention span of online readers is very short so they only scan your contents. So, it is very important to put the key elements of your Web site like logo design and company information within the said pattern to get grab attention quickly. Using bullet points and sub-heads are also very helpful.

You can visit our Web design portfolio to see good examples of high quality and professional-looking designs.

Via downloadsquad

When something is fashionable, everyone wants to be in style. But the current styles disrupt the reader’s experience. In reviewing hundreds of sites as a judge and receiving submissions for the CSS Collection, I discovered lousy content trends. Daring to be different often leads to sacrificing experience, usability and credibility. Here are five ways to instantly improve a Web site.

1. Avoid grey text on light backgrounds

Recently, the design industry decided black bored, so it was time for something different — gray. Somehow this trend caught on as many designs dumped black text for gray.

Black worked. That’s why it was boring and overused. Our monitors typically display colors differently. What I see as strong gray may appear as light gray on your monitor. Most shades of gray on a light background strain the eyes. The problem is worse on monitors that turn regular gray into a shadowy gray giving text a ghostly, hard-to-see look.

Black is hard to miss. Black makes finding links easier. Black is cool. Black needs to come back.

2. Use a larger default font size

Web 2.0 style design changed the bad habit of small text, but many sites still shrink their default text especially on Flash based sites. To make the situation more dreadful, small text in Flash appears blurry.

Though using the Internet is routine for most businesses, many visitors still don’t know they can increase the text size. Besides, it’s an extra step they shouldn’t have to take.

A site has a short open window to convince the reader to stick around. When seeing small text, do you think users stay on the site longer once they get what they want? Boost the text size, save a step and prolong their stay.

3. Avoid using big headers/banners

Web 2.0 also brings the trend of big headers with the Website’s title and lots of space around it. Whitespace works well, but not for headers. Big headers shove valuable content “below the fold” requiring the user to scroll to get the goods.

Vertical scrolling is a mainstay in Web browsing. Agreed. But pushing the important stuff off the screen lowers your chances of keeping a “just browsing” visitor and more so in the business world. Many sites use big headers complemented with a large image, which hides their content below the fold requiring scrolling to get to it.

4. Show readers what your site or business is about — quickly

How many visitors arrive at business sites through a search engine? As you know, search engines don’t distinguish the home page from the other pages. If visitors arrive on an inner page, will they know where they are? Will they know what this site or business does?

Sites need to quickly communicate what they do … on every page. A slogan, title or tagline usually takes care of this. However, not just any tagline will do. What does “We deliver high performance” tell you? Try this. Go to a search engine and enter a keyword for an industry. Randomly click on a few results and see if you can figure out what the business does.

5. Tell readers who is behind the site or business

When you can’t find an “About Us” or “About the Company” page, what do you think?

Though a business or site could be one of the more trustworthy ones, the lack of a decent “About” page hurts. An effective “About” page contains a summary about the company or site, what it does for its customers and includes biographies of people behind the company or site. Take care to avoid jargon. Even better, have an outsider read the “About” page to see if it’s understandable. Go the extra mile and name names accompanying them with photos.

Gain trust by posting privacy and security policies. A simple “We respect your privacy” next to the form requesting information works. You can have a link to the long, blah blah policies to make legal and for those who take this stuff seriously happy. You can turn “We respect your privacy” into a link to the privacy page or put the link in the footer.

Kick butt, take notes

I learned many of these lessons simply from surfing sites, noting first impressions and paying attention to what bothers me or disrupts the experience. If you’re about to embark on a Web design project for a real estate company, surf as many real estate websites as possible, noting the things that work and don’t work. Anything that prompts a feeling, note that too. If something makes you smile, note it. If something frustrates you, note it.

About the author

Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl.net, helping companies build relationships with clients and prospects through content. She is the author of Brilliant Outlook Pocketbook.

Here’s a bit of link love for a few articles of interest I came across that are related to design, blogging, and information presentation.

1. CSS tutorials.
   Snook.ca suggests that there are six keys to modern CSS-based layouts for websites and presents a list of article links for you to check out. I’ve previously read or browsed many of the articles, and they’re worth looking at.
2. Free web templates.
   If you can’t be bothered to learn CSS or just don’t have the time, free templates abound. Tech Magazine has a big list of links to sites offering free templates. Styleshout offers free templates and has links to others. You’ll find links and/or downloads for both static templates and various blog platforms.
3. Custom RSS feed buttons.
   Don’t like the orange square with rounded corners that is the standard RSS button? Make your own thanks to a Photoshop tutorial from PinkZAP.
4. Who is your blog audience?
   Do you know who your audience is? If you have a business blog, it’s more than possible that your audience may not be the people that you want for customers. Dawud Miracle explores the issue of blog audience.
5. Online presentation tools.
   If you’re in a business where you have to give regular presentations, be it to clients, venture capitalists, or what have you, you’re probably familiar with Microsoft Powerpoint. Did you know that there are numerous competitors that run in a browser? Mashable presents a list of 30 online presentation and slideshow tools.

There are many ways to build links and traffic. Some are organic methods, others are borderline or completely unacceptable as far as search engines (SEs) are concerned. Here’s a sampling of some common methods. Most were acceptable as earlier as last year, though some SEs may be penalizing them, if detectable.

1. Article directories.
   While article directories such as Ezinearticles and GoArticles can help build links and traffic, make sure that you do not submit the exact content as on your site. Rewrite articles you’ve already published at least a few weeks in the past, and rewrite them. Submit those to a select few good article directories. Do article syndication right, and it’ll benefit you.
2. Directories.
   Pick a few good authority directories such as Yahoo! Directory, Dmoz, EatonWeb, Aviva Directory and JoeAnt.
3. Guest blogging.
   Guest blogging can gain you links, traffic, and new subscribers. There are many sites and blogs looking for guest writers. Even Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Cilnton is looking for a guest post. If you don’t support her, maybe your favorite candidate is doing the same.
4. Good grammar.
   Some bloggers simply will not link to a site where the writer comes off as illiterate. It’s worth your time to spell check your articles before posting them, for numerous reasons.
5. Comments.
   Comments on other sites, if they allow you to include your site URL, will at least bring some traffic. Some sites even use “do follow”, so search engines will follow through and index your pages.
6. Forums.
   At most forums, you can add your URL to your member profile, which will appear whenever you participate in discussions. Some forums do expect you to post a certain number of times before your URL will show in your signature. Of course, the more helpful your forum postings, the more likely you are to draw traffic. If those visitors are bloggers, you might even pick up a few links to your site, eventually.
7. Linking out.
   Be a link leaker. In your articles, link out as often or more than you link in. If you are linking to relevant articles elsewhere, your readers will appreciate this, as will the other bloggers - either of whom may eventually link to you.
8. Set trackbacks.
   If you’re not tech-savvy, trackbacks may take some time to understand. They work like this. Blog A writes an article and links to Blog B. Blog B has trackbacks turned on. When Blog A publishes the article, it sends a “trackback” notice to Blog B. Now, a little snippet of text from Blog A’s article appears in Blog B’s article’s trackbacks/ comments section. Now, just by allowing trackbacks, you might actually induce more people to link to you. (Unfortunately, there’s also lots of trackback spam these days.)
9. Link exchanges.
   Link exchanges, like several of the techniques in this list, must be done carefully if you decide to use them. Some search engines such as Google are possibly discounting reciprocal link exchanges.
10. Purchased links.
    There are several types of purchased links:
    1. Sitewide in navigation bars.
    2. End-of-post.
    3. In-post.

    Google in particular is cracking down on paid links (both buyer and seller) by penalizing the authority of any page carrying paid links or pointed to by them. The problem for them is that some types are more subtle than others, and they are asking people to snitch to them. Some experts feel that Google is doing this because they don’t want to lose AdWords revenue. Others assume it’s simply because paid links skew PageRank.

    Regardless, if you are careful, paid links can work for you. Here are some considerations:

    1. In general, in-post (editorial) links are always better than sidebar/ blogroll links, most especially if they are relevant.
    2. You can buy links that are displayed at the end of a post, though these are more detectable.
    3. Sitewide nav bar links may have less value in the future, depending on the search engine.

    A couple of the more popular link brokers are Text Link Ads and Text Link Brokers.

11. Purchased ads.
    If you’re concerned about buying links, the next best think is a purchased ad - which is really a link anyway. Still, Google is trying to force their hand on everyone and recommends that anyone selling ads (or links) should use the NoFollow attribute in paid links. That’s so that Google does not follow and index a linked page. Obviously, not everyone agrees with Google on this and ignore this suggestion for their ads.
12. Purchased reviews.
    Purchased reviews are viewed by some as a way to get some blogger to say something nice about you if you pay them. Others feel there is nothing wrong with this. There’s enough of a market that there are at least seven well-known pay per review sites. A few are PayPerPost, ReviewMe, SponsoredReviews, and LoudLaunch.
13. Review exchanges.
    If you don’t feel like paying for a review, some bloggers offer review exchanges, which might be viewed the same way as reciprocal linking by some search engines.
14. Press releases.
    If you have something worthwhile to announce about your site/ business, using a web press release might be useful. Some sites even allow you to include a live link (as opposed to the just the text of your URL).
15. Video with watermarked URL.
    If you post any original content at a video sharing site such as YouTube, Revver, or dozens of others, make sure that your site’s URL appears at the beginning and end of the video. It may not be linkable, but if it’s easier to remember, it could pull a lot of traffic. Alternately, if you use SplashCast, you can actually link to your site from within their media player.
16. Linkable content.
    You’ve read it all over the place: content is king. It’s true because good content is inherently linkable. Create lots of it. Here are a few types to consider.
    1. Good and/or entertaining content.
    2. List-style linkbaits.
    3. Resource linkbaits.
    4. Tutorials.
    5. Free themes.
    6. Free plugins.
    7. Profiles of bloggers or other people important in their niche or industry.
17. Social media marketing.
    SMM, or Social Media Marketing, coupled with linkable content can be immensely valuable for traffic and link building. Keep in mind that there are several types of social media sites, each with different rules. Here are a few.
    1. Member-voted news sites [Digg, Sphinn].
    2. Social profile sites such as [Myspace].
    3. Social bookmarking sites [del.icio.us].
    4. Professional networking site profiles [LinkedIn].
    5. Wikis [Wikipedia].
    6. Hybrids [Stumbleupon].

    All of these sites either allow you to set up a profile with your link and/or allow articles to be posted. Some do not like if you submit your own article. Respect the culture at each, and ask a friend to submit articles if necessary. Using good titles and descriptions, as well as the right category, makes an enormous difference.

18. Blog Carnivals.
    Blog carnivals are an ideal way for new blogs to get some link love and traffic, and to network with other bloggers. And it’s usually from topically related sites so search engines love it. [Check out our Carnival of Small Business and Startups.]
19. Feed subscription buttons.
    Placing these prominently on your site “above the fold” tends to help increase subscribers. If they can’t find it, they won’t subscribe. Subscribers are sometimes bloggers, some of whom may someday link to you.
20. Blog and ping.
    Blog and ping amounts to having your blog platform signal various blog directories or blog search engines whenever you post a new article. Those sites in turn publish a list of “recently updated blogs”. Some come and index your page, making it freshly searchable. Targeting certain times of day can be more beneficial if you post several articles per day, rather than posting them within a few minutes of each other. Also, if you are targeting a specific geographic region, try to post before the beginning of the work day in their time zone (typically before 8 am in a zone).
21. Affiliate programs.
    If you have a product or service that you sell on your site, consider starting an affiliate program. Not only does this expose you to more potential customers and bring traffic, you shares your profits with others, which builds good will. It’s often but not always a win-win situation.

Daily Blog Tips had an article in June about designing a great WordPress theme. The fact is, you don’t need to start from scratch. There are several minimalist WP themes that are Open Source, which you can tweak and build upon. Even if you don’t use WordPress, the following tweaks can be applied to any type of website or weblog platform.

1. Change primary background color.
2. Change background behind content blocks.
3. Change hyperlink color based on whether the link is being hovered, has been visited, unvisited, etc.
4. Change article title font size.
5. Change article sub-heading font and font sizes.
6. Change the font size of navigation link anchor text.
7. Change the background color of nav links upon hover.
8. Change of the font and size of article body text.
9. Increase leading (whitespace) between lines.
10. Increase whitespace between paragraphs.
11. Increase or decrease number of columns.
12. Increase or decrease total width of page.
13. Add a blog logo.
14. Add/ remove a banner graphic.
15. Add/ remove a footer section and/or graphic.
16. Improve navigation blocks.
17. Reposition a navigation column.
18. Combine multiple navigation columns into one.
19. Change comment backgrounds - possibly alternate colors.
20. Alternately indent comments.
21. Number the comments.
22. Change blockquote font.
23. Change blockquote font size.
24. Add background color to blockquotes.
25. Add a blockquote border.
26. Change default positioning of blockquotes.
27. Add custom quotation marks to blockquotes.
28. Customize bullet lists and icons.
29. Add article posting date. (Try a little calendar form like the posts on this blog.)
30. Add author name, with or without a link from their name to their own website.

No doubt there are loads more tweaks. Can you think of more? I covered some of these in more detail before - improve your site’s look with 15 easy tips. After you’ve customized your theme, don’t forget 5 types of visual content you can use to visually brand your site’s style.