Learn from Successful Web Sites

The pages are kept small by using only the graphics that are necessary. Yahoo's main page has a total of 3 graphics, totaling about 8k. This keeps the site lean and mean and allows the site to load in about 6 seconds. The sites average about 10 graphics, but the graphics are generally all very tiny gif images. This keeps down the amount of time needed to bring down the graphics. Instead of graphics, almost all of the sites add color as a graphic element by using tables with colored backgrounds.

Change is bad.
This runs contrary to common thought. Many would argue that web sites should be constantly changing and reinventing themselves-they have to be like sharks, keep moving or die. For a site to be user-friendly, though, the site must tend to stay the same.

How often have you clicked on links and found them broken? How many times have you bookmarked a page only to try it again at a later date and find that what you want has been moved? Changes tend to make web sites harder to use, and can create annoyances for users.

People like new things, but find familiar things easier to use. For this reason, most of sites have stayed the same for long periods of time, (at least as measured on the internet). Yahoo is a good example. If you compare how Yahoo looked several years ago to how it looks today, you'd see that there have been very few big changes. This lack of change brings familiarity, and familiarity creates an ease of use. This ease of use may even carry over from site to site, because many of these popular sites take advantage of common site elements.

Changes are being made at all of these sites, of course. But these changes are like the face of a friend that looks different every day, but is still instantly recognizable. Anyone returning to your site should instantly recognize the site and know exactly where to go to find what they want.

Content changes should generally happen a few levels down the organizational hierarchy. By making the big changes a few steps down the hierarchy, the main links are static. This allows users to quickly jump to areas that they are interested in. This also means that one can bookmark an important area and expect go back to

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