Website Usability Guidelines

Website Homepage (3 of 4)

Follow these usability recommendations:

Auto-Playing Music - Never

Liquid vs. Frozen Text - Text Size - Always use relative size that makes it possible for users to make type bigger or smaller.

Liquid vs. Frozen Layout - All page design elements should be liquid.

Link Color - Yes. Use different colors for visited and unvisited links. Unvisited links should be the most saturated color. Blue is recommended. Visited links should be a less prominent color, but not light gray.

Shipping Policy - E-commerce sites should have a separate heading for shipping policies.

Return/Refund Policy - E-commerce sites should have a separate heading for product return or refund policies.

Product Repair (Defective Product) - If product has a service warranty it should be stated or have a link.

Page Width - Optimize for 770 pixels, but with a liquid layout that works at anything from 620 to 1024 pixels. The most popular pixel setting is 1024 x 768.

Page Length - One or two full screens is best. Never more than three full screens (1000 to 1600 pixels).

Sitemap Link - Studies show that almost all users want a sitemap to help them find information and navigate the website. Search engines also use the sitemap page as a crawler page for their index. An effective sitemap will give the user information about the link.

Routing Page (Sitemap) - A routing page is a website page with a number of hyperlinks to lead to interior website pages.