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May. 4th, 2004 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yesthattomhttp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789723107/safocus-20
Basically, walk 15-20 feet away from the computer and look at the screen. Is your eye drawn to what you want users to look at? In the case of blogforamerica.com, the page is so busy that my eye can't settle on any one thing. Krug suggests that this happens often when a large group of people are giving requirements for the site and no priorities have been set. I'm no guru, but I'd think the blog should draw people's eyes to the current headline.
Try the test on George Bush's Re-election Web Site and you eye is immediately drawn to their message of the day: "Yes, America Can!" (According to newswires their press-releases said the message this week was going to be "Winning the war on terror" but starting Monday the press-releases switched to their new theme and the Bush campaign isn't owning up the the switch.)
Kerry's web site does a fairly good job of this, but not as well as Bush.
Your homework: Pick 3 of your favorite web sites and try the eyetest. Post your results.
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Date: 2004-05-04 01:52 pm (UTC)If you can get through the boring bits at the beginning, Jeff Zeldman's "Designing with Web Standards" is a killer book.
My eyes...
Date: 2004-05-04 02:49 pm (UTC)I got out of there just as soon as I could, the page gave me a creepy feeling. Now they know where I'm at. Ah hell, I guess they've always known. Stupid IP address.
~sw
DfA web design
Date: 2004-05-04 04:24 pm (UTC)There are good things and bad things about the new blog site design. It's great to have a bar of persistent links along the side again, and easy access to the archives.
They haven't responded yet, so I don't know if they read it.There are some ways in which the new look makes the blog harder to read. Having a lot of colors is distracting. Also, a sans-serif font is harder to read than a serif font. Sans-serif is fine for titles, but not for blocks of text, and having as few typefaces as possible on the page (ideally, no more than two) both looks better and is more readable. So, I recommend cutting down on the number of colors, and switching to a serif typeface, to make the blog more readable and easier on the eyes. Finally, blocks of solid color try to grab the eye, and there are several blocks of solid color on the blog that don't serve any purpose except to distract they eye to decorations. I'd remove those.
-- Cos